secular trend
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Related to secular trend: seasonal variation
Secular Market
A market as defined by its overarching, long-term trends. Generally, a secular market refers to trends over a period of five or more years. A secular market may be bullish or bearish, and, in market analysis, takes precedence over opposite, short-term trends that happen within the secular market. For example, the Great Depression in the United States lasted from 1929 until World War II (certainly a bearish secular market). Even though some years saw significant GDP growth (including 14.2% growth in 1936), this did not prevent the secular market from being bearish. Thus, a secular market describes general trends in the market without regard for anomalous trends in the interim. See also: Cyclical market.
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secular trend
The relatively consistent movement of a variable over a long period. A stock in a secular uptrend is an indicator that the security has experienced an extended period of rising prices.
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.
secular trend
see SALES FORECASTING.Collins Dictionary of Business, 3rd ed. © 2002, 2005 C Pass, B Lowes, A Pendleton, L Chadwick, D O’Reilly and M Afferson


Fig. 175 Secular trend. The movement in the UK's gross domestic product (volume basis), 1994–2003. Source: Office for National Statistics.
secular trend
a long-term movement, either upwards or downwards, in some economic variable. For example, Fig. 175 shows that the GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP) - in current prices - of the UK has risen steadily in the period since 1994. See also TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS, CYCLICAL FLUCTUATIONS.Collins Dictionary of Economics, 4th ed. © C. Pass, B. Lowes, L. Davies 2005