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: What is a Bear Hug?7 Views

00:00

Finance a la shmoop what is a bear-hug? well you remember old uncle [Uncle Larry appears]

00:08

Larry right the former 350 pound Olympic wrestler who could braid his own chest

00:15

hair yeah kind of gross but no that's the guy well he got out of the bathtub [Larry in a bath tub]

00:19

once while y'all were at your ski cabin in Wyoming and a real bear saw him

00:24

through the window and well simply put fell in love yeah that's how

00:29

Bears do it well Larry went over to the bear family [Larry wearing bear fur]

00:31

for Christmas and when he walked in a little bear dude guy screamed Mom, there's a

00:37

human in the cave but Larry fit right in he hugged each of the Bear Jamboree [Larry hugging a bear]

00:43

family really hard they wanted to call it a human hug but well somehow the name

00:48

didn't stick so uncle Larry is that guy well he hugged at Christmas

00:52

bears humans and whatever he hugged hard.. hard enough to squeeze the air out of

00:57

anyone or anything and if he suddenly let go well you had a really hard time [Larry lets bear go and bear struggles to breathe]

01:01

catching your breath well that's the setting of a Wall Street bear hug, a big

01:06

hairy powerful player often recently bathed ideally yeah not still in the

01:11

bathtub making a bid to buy a weaker competitor at a price substantially

01:17

higher than the current market price of the target it's a hug and the target had [Larry chasing a man for a hug]

01:23

better hugged back and be acquired or else why because if the bear hugger

01:29

suddenly lets go while the target falls back from the $28

01:33

a share of the bear is offering to buy it falls all the way back to the 15

01:38

dollars it was trading at before all that you know hugging started and if the

01:42

bear walks away and the company just languishes at 15 bucks a share without [Bear walks away with company]

01:47

any other bidders.. the board gets their pants sued off by shareholders who

01:51

are just "robbed" of $13 a share in gains likely meaning that the

01:56

entire company reboots and in hindsight well that it would have been oh so much

02:01

better to let Larry just move into the cave where you know he really felt at [Larry in the cave with bears]

02:05

home with everyone there check out those salmon..

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