What is the difference between 'bear' and 'bull' markets?

Question

There's a lot of talk today about the FTSE 100 being dragged into a 'bear' market. Can someone tell me what that means, and how it is different from a 'bull' market? How did these phrases originate?

Answer 1

When the "bears" appear this frightens everyone ,so people turn into sellers.

"Bulls" charge recklessly with heads down and this tends to send prices upwards sharply .

Hence, we have a bull or bear market.

Answer 2

Bulls are basically known as more buyers than sellers in the market which in turns rise the market due to the lack of sellers and high buyers.

Whereas, Bear are of more  sellers in comparison with buyers. This makes the market fall as the sellers the more than buyers.

Answer 3

They are all correct. I remember it by

Bear - the market (as per the cupboard in the Mrs Hubbard story) is bear

Bull - the opposite. Strong and powerful.

xxFJ

Answer 4

A bear market is a market that hardly moves, like a bear which like to scratch its back and rest on a tree. A bull market move up and up, like a bull that charge at any thing that moves. My own interpretation.

Answer 5

they are related to how each animal would scratch a tree - the bear would scratch it's claws down (bear market is down trending market) and a bull would pull it's horns up (bull market is a upwards trending market)

Answer 6

Bull is a market on the rise and Bear is a market falling.

There are other terms but let's not worry about them.....

Answer 7

Bear market is a market that is falling

Bull market is a market that is rising