Bear Market

  

Unfortunately, not the place where the three bears got their porridge.

Sometimes there are conditions in the stock market where things aren't always looking up. Companies aren't making as much money, prices are falling and investors begin to get worried about their securities. A bear market is one in which it feels like the economy is spinning out of control and the sky is falling. The beginning of a bear market is when share prices show a decline of 20% or more that lasts for two months or more.

We all remember learning about the Wall Street Crash in 1929; that was a bear market. As bearish as it gets. A bear market can affect Joe and Jill Shmo, not just the big wigs in Wall Street.

Oh, and by the way...while a bear market is a prolonged period of falling stock prices accompanied by general investor pessimism, if it's a short period of declines followed by price increases, it's called a correction. What's "prolonged"? It's in the eye of the beholder. Or, to be more specific, it's how the talking heads on CNBC define it.

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Finance a la shmoop what's the difference between bear and bull? bear

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pessimistic bad growly things coming Negative Nancy boo bear...Bull [Bear walking into water]

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awesomesauce life's good you take it by the you know horns alright we're gonna

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apply bear and bull to markets here but they apply to a whole lot of things and

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a bear market is actually technical nomenclature that refers to sustained or [Bear market definition on 100 dollar bill]

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prolonged periods of time where stock prices generally just fall...three

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four five six seven eight quarters where the market craps the bed down down down

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the bear market pattern is different from just a correction when the market

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takes just a short term dump and then well you know quickly recovers yeah like [Bear market graph]

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it has a bad quarter or two and then starts climbing again well that's not

00:49

the big bad bear that's just a correction a bull market is just the

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opposite it goes up up up like this guy in his balloon-powered house and that's [House with balloons travels up a stock value graph]

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it both are dangerous in the wild but on Wall Street huh you just have to watch

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out for the Bears [Bear chasing a woman]

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