This Bear Market Will Create Fortunes For Some
You’ve doubtlessly already heard about the terms ‘bull market’ and ‘bear market’. What do these really mean? A bear market is simply when you have a drop in a large number of share prices over a relatively long period of time. Traders normally talk about a bear market when prices have dropped at least 20% over a period of no less than two months. As more and more people sell their stocks, market prices are pushed down even further.
A bull market is just the opposite: A prolonged, widespread rise in the price of a large number of stocks. While the pessimism behind a market with declining prices drives it even further down, the optimism underlying a bull market drives the prices to even higher levels.
A bear market should not be confused with a simple market correction. Market corrections happen regularly and usually do not last more than a day or two.
It’s fairly easy to comprehend how traders can make money during a bull market; it’s in fact hard not to make a profit in such a market. How is it possible to make a profit in a free-falling market though?
One such way is if you could accurately predict the end of the falling market and then buy a selection of top quality stock tips. Although you can use a variety of fundamental and technical indicators to help you with predicting the turning point, it remains very difficult. Even the best of traders often fail to correctly predict the turning point of a slumping market.
A further option you have is to sell stocks short. What happens in effect is that you borrow stocks from your brokerage and then sell them to another trader at the current (high) price. Once the negative market has taken its toll and the price of the stock is much lower, you buy it again and give back what you borrowed from the brokerage. It will of course only work if the market actually goes down.
A further course of action is to buy so-called put options, which increase in price when the market declines. Once again you have to be pretty sure it’s actually a bear market which is still in a declining phase, otherwise you will lose the money you risked on the option.
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