That action still presupposes that there will actually be a market for stocks. I have on my wall a Bond of the City of Saint Petersburg (Russia) issued in 1915, and the coupons are clipped up until 1917. Then worthless. St Petersburg was still a city (Leningrad) but there was no value to the bond (as a side note to those who think this way, yes, I have tried to collect on this bond after the collapse of the USSR, to no avail!). What good does it matter to hold certs if the system is gone? Maybe someday there will be a free market for your paper, but I am wondering now whether it would be better now to just walk away from this exercise in free market futility and get more PM's.