Meaning
A sustained period of falling prices in a securities market - analysts commonly define it as a decline of 20 percent or more from a recent peak. Bearish describes the pessimistic, selling mood behind it, and the term is applied loosely to any persistently falling market, from stocks to housing. Technical in finance media but widely understood; reserve it for sustained declines, not a single bad trading day. The counterpart bull market is always implied in the pairing. Regional use: General English (origin: London stock exchange).
Origin
The best-evidenced explanation traces bear to eighteenth-century London bearskin jobbers - middlemen who sold bearskins before the bear was caught, profiting when prices fell, exactly like modern short sellers. Richard Steele's Tatler essay of 1709 gives an early use, defining a bear as one engaged in 'selling a bear', and Daniel Defoe's Political History of the Devil (1726) lists every bear-skin jobber among rogues. Thomas Mortimer's Every Man His Own Broker (1761) records both bulls (credit buyers) and bears (short sellers) as established Exchange Alley slang, so the animal pairing was complete by then, likely reinforced by the era's staged bull-and-bear baitings. Merriam-Webster says bear came first and dates the compound bear market itself to 1873; the popular story that a bear swipes downward while a bull thrusts upward is a mnemonic with little evidential support, and the ultimate origin remains genuinely uncertain.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a bears' market
- bear territory
- bearish market
Usage Examples
- The index slid 22 percent from its March high, officially locking in a bear market by Friday.
- Veterans of the 2008 bear market remember how even quality shares were dumped at any price.
- Rising bond yields and weak earnings could tip an already tired market into bear territory.