Bear

An investor who believes a stock or the overall market will decline. A bear market is a prolonged period of falling stock prices, usually by 20% or more. Related: bull.

Bear

An investor who believes, for any technical or fundamental reason, that a security or the broader market will decline significantly. A bear takes the appropriate steps to limit losses during the period that they believe that the security will decline. They may sell their long positions or short sell the security to profit from the decline in price. See also: Bull.

bear

An investor who believes a security or some other asset or the security markets in general will follow a broad downward path. An investor can often be a bear on a particular security but not on the general market and vice versa. Compare bull.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

bear

a person who sells a financial security (stock, share, foreign currency, etc.) in expectation that its market price is likely to fall. See SPECULATION. Compare BULL.

bear

a person who expects future prices in a STOCK EXCHANGE or COMMODITY MARKET to fall and who seeks to make money by selling shares or commodities. Compare BULL. See SPOT MARKET, FUTURES MARKET, BEAR MARKET.

Collins Dictionary of Economics, 4th ed. © C. Pass, B. Lowes, L. Davies 2005

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References in periodicals archive

A bear with a back line below the second (top) ring on the barrel is less than 23 inches tall and less than 200 pounds.

Bear heaven--revisited: once a bowhunter has tasted success on the huge bears of eastern Canada, he has to do it again ... and again

I couldn't have got that bear with a heat-seeking rocket let alone a bow and arrow.

Take Five

I can assure you that I will never again hunt a big bear with a caliber as light as .30.

Bear Bustin' Rifles