the.com/bear market
When everything you own quietly becomes worth less, loudly.
means A sustained period in financial markets when prices fall sharply (typically 20% or more from recent highs) and pessimism feeds on itself.
from Traces to 18th-century London stock jobbers who sold shares they didn't yet own, betting prices would drop before they had to deliver — called selling 'the bear's skin' before catching the bear, from the old proverb about not selling the bearskin before you've killed the bear. 'Bear' stuck for the sellers betting on decline; 'bull,' its rowdy opposite, came later, possibly chosen simply as the bear's traditional animal-sport rival.
- origin
- bears swipe downward, bulls thrust upward
- threshold
- officially a 20% drop from recent highs
- psychology
- people sell winners too early, losers too late
- duration
- historically shorter than the bull markets before them