Bears versus Bulls

That title sounds like an amazing Animal Planet documentary, but it is about the stock market. Leave it to finance to depress. When things are going great in the stock market people are happy and when things are going poorly it’s the Great Depression or the Great Recession. The world is going to end if Wall Street can’t make money. Technically a street can never make money.

Anyway, people hear the terms bear market and bull market or the phrase the market is bearish or the market is bullish. I want to short some things out. The market is not full of bears dressed in suits pawing at stocks and smacking computers across the office when a trade goes wrong. Or, when a market is bullish it does not mean that bulls are stampeding through Wall Street goring your stock trader, although that might be nice for some people.

A bear market is like being bare naked in public. Something is wrong and the situation looks bad. A person is bearish when they believe bad news is imminent. They are usually dismissed as bummers until every stock goes down and then they are praised as geniuses. People treat them like fortune teller they are clearly wrong until they are right.

A bull market is like being a bull riding champion. You have won and you are about to receive a fat check (Even though you ticked off a bull by twisting his testicles. Yes, that is how you make a bull buck like child craving candy). A person who is bullish is optimistic about the market or trying to sell you stock. Bullish people are praised as being brilliant when the stock market is going up and all a person needs in order to make money is have money in the market. Here is a stock tip when the market is going up: Buy Google. When the market is in the tank these bullish people are still trying to buy stocks in order to make the money back they lost. Don’t worry; the bullish people will still be praised as brilliant no matter what happens. Bullish people are like news anchors. They tell a lot of stories and you wish they would say anything worthwhile.