bear market

plural bear markets

1. businessA stock market where a majority of investors are selling ("bears"), causing overall stock prices to drop. Often operationally defined as a market value drop of 20% or more on some specific stock market index.

   1 more example

   Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return.

   2013 July 6, “The rise of smart beta”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8843, page 68

   Antonyms: bull market

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bear, market.

   Bear images are now sold to an ever-increasing circle of admirers (as evidenced by Catalina producing videos aimed at the bear market).

   2016 April 8, Thomas McCann, “Laid Bear: Masculinity with All the Trappings”, in Les Wright, editor, The Bear Book II: Further Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture, Routledge, →DOI, →ISBN, page 323

   3 more examples

   Now bids are submitted by button companies for the Teddy Bear contract, and Germany plush factories manufacture plush especially for the bear market at Giengen Brenz.

   1908 November 5, “The First “Teddy Bears.””, in Presbyterian Banner, volume 95, Pittsburgh, →OCLC, page 16 (692), column 2

   It is significant that in the last 5-10 years the preferred method of safely transporting cubs purchased at bear markets and near “Dangs” or forests has been through friendly truck drivers, […]

   1997 August, Geeta Seshamani, Kartick Satyanarayan, “The dancing bears of India”, in World Society for the Protection of Animals, archived from the original on 23 Feb 2022

   During the summer of 1906 the bear market surged when toy bears, sold as zoo souvenirs, attracted crowds of little boys and their parents along boardwalks at the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore.

   1999 November 15, Gary Cross, Kids' Stuff: Toys and the Changing World of American Childhood, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 95