Bear market

“ Good news is frequently followed by a sharp relapse in prices, because of the selling by Bulls anxious to take advantage of it. Bad news is frequently without effect, or followed by a rise, because the Bears see their opportunity of buying back the stock they have sold, and thus support the market. Thus it comes that the rates at the settlement are eagerly watched, that some indication may be obtained as to whether a Bull account or a Bear account exists. ”

“ By concerted action they may "bang the market," indulge in a "Bear raid," and bring prices down to a level much lower than is warranted by the intrinsic merits of the security which they have attacked. The talk is all gloom. At the end of the raid, however, the position of the Bear is an exceedingly dangerous one; he may find it impossible to obtain the stock which, having sold, he has undertaken to deliver. Prices begin to rise again, and the "Bear covering," or buying back, only enhances the upward movement. In time it may become impossible to buy back at any price ”

“ Excitement in the Pit is not always over wheat. It may be oats. It was Canadian Western Oats which became the storm centre in 1911 when the Grain Growers got into difficulty with the "bears." Traders who attempt to boost prices are known as "bulls"; those who are interested in depressing the market are "bears." A trader may be a bear to-day and a bull to-morrow; thus the opposing groups are constantly changing in make-up and the firm which was a chief opponent in yesterday's trading may be lined up alongside the day following, fighting with instead of against. ”

“ Sally formed a new firm immediately—Hayward & Co.—with his cashier as partner.
IV. All mundane things have an end, even bull markets and bear markets. The bull market saw Hayward & Co. doing a good business, as did everybody else in Wall Street. It ended, and the firm’s customers, after a few bad “slumps” in prices, were admonished to turn bears in order to recoup their losses. Bears believe prices are too high and should go lower; bulls, optimists, believe the opposite. The public can’t sell stocks “short” any more than the average man is left-handed. ”

“ Many of the firms with which the bear combine had “short” contracts outstanding would doubtless fail, and in the general crash the successful bears themselves might be heavy losers. After a protracted conference the bears agreed to “let up” on Gould on condition that he should turn over to them 50,000 shares of Western Union at the current market price, $50 per share. This enabled them to make delivery of the shares they had sold at high prices. ”

“ Francis Delavan merely smiled, and Tom Halstead, looking covertly at him, admired the difference between his employer and Eben Moddridge.
A “bear” is one who is trying to lower the selling price of a stock. Often, in order to accomplish this, the “bear” “sells short.” That is, he offers to sell large blocks of the stock in question, at a lower figure than the market price. ”

“ The word itself implies that the charge is for holding back a transaction, as directly opposed to that for which a contango is paid. The one is to carry forward, and the other to carry backward. A speculator who sells for the fall, and thereby makes himself a bear, must pay something if he wishes to keep the transaction open; just as the bull must, unless exceptional circumstances are influencing the market. When the settlement arrives, a bear must either deliver what he has sold, or pay the backwardation demanded for postponing delivery ”

“ When work slacks off here, we could pick that stuff up."
"Conn, there's an old stock-market maxim: 'A bear can make money sometimes, and a bull can make money sometimes, but in the long run, a hog always loses.' Let the other people find some of this; it'll all help the Plan. Fact is, I've been thinking of leaking some information, if I can do it without Fawzi and that gang finding out. Do you know a good supply depot or something like that, say over on Acaire, or on the west coast? Big enough to be important, and to start a second prospectors' rush away from us." ”

“ Fluctuations in prices have been increased rather than diminished. The corrective influence of the bear side of the market having been restricted, the tendency to an inflated bull movement was increased in times of prosperity. This in turn made the danger of radical collapse all the greater in240 proportion as the bull movement was abnormal. The greater funds needed to carry stocks on a cash basis further increased the danger when collapse was threatened. The result was an increased incentive to reckless speculation and manipulation. ”

“ Bird business is well enough for some, but bear is my game, with a deer and a California lion thrown in now and then for change. There’s always market for bear grease, and sometimes you can sell the hams. They’re good as hog hams any day. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears ain’t too big and too many for you. ”

“ Of course he cannot guarantee the killing of the bear: that is left to the skill of the hunters, who must take their chance. The tracker only answers for a bear being found within a prescribed circle, of which he gives proof by pointing out the spar. With such conditions, established by long and well-observed custom, it will easily be believed that the woodcutters and other peasants make a market by ringing bears, frequently disposing of the “ring” to the more ardent hunters for a very considerable price! ”

“ Precise Dry weather causing firmer feeling. Precisely Dry weather and hot winds causes advance. Precision Market oversold locally, look for reaction. Preclude Continued cold weather advancing market. Precluding Continued, wet weather advancing market. Preclusion Crowd so bullish bear news has little effect. Predatory Bulls talk higher prices but too timid to follow up their conviction. Predicant Bears talk lower prices but lack the nerve to follow their conviction. Predicate Bulls seem to have lost courage. Prejudice Character of buying too much by scalpers chancing an eighth. ”

“ But the bears are sometimes badly 'squeezed,' and then they make a rush to 'cover.' When the bulls learn that there is a large 'short' interest in a particular stock, they put their heads together and get up a 'corner.' When a stock is said to be 'cornered,' the meaning is that it is controlled by a clique. The clique hold enough of it to control the market, and exact such terms as may be desired. An upward movement is suddenly developed, and then the bears, who have sold 'short,' in expectation of lower prices, become alarmed, and begin to buy. ”

“ The bulls are always 'long' of stock, and the bears are always 'short.' The speculator who has stock on hand which he bought with expectation of selling at higher prices, is on the bull side, and, in the parlance of the street, is 'long.' A bear seldom has stock on hand. ”

“ For a time the bear brokers endeavored to keep pace with the movement and to buy as much stock as possible for delivery at the settling hour, which was fast approaching. The rush quickly became overwhelming, and they stopped for a moment in sheer panic and amazement. It was wrong, perhaps, to accuse them of losing their heads even for an instant, because no matter how insane a broker’s actions on the floor of the Exchange may appear to be, he will never admit losing control of himself. ”

“ If the supply of stock should chance to be large, he will find it very easy to continue his bear account, because the stock he has sold is not wanted. Under such circumstances, the position of the bear speculator comes to be the exact antithesis of that in which the bull finds himself at the settlement when the stock he has bought is scarce. ”

“ Men far down the line shouted to Dodge not to sell the meat in big pieces, but to save slices for them. The meat sold for $1 a pound. Everybody got a slice, and we got $500 for our three bears.
"One of our crowd was so elated over the profits of bear-hunting that he started out alone the next day to get more Grizzly meat. He didn't come back, and the boys who went out to look for him found his body, covered up with leaves and dirt, in the edge of a clump of brush. His skull had been smashed by a blow from a Grizzly's paw." ”

“ As a matter of fact, call options are much more frequently entered upon by the public than are put options, for the same reason that the public are far more frequently Bulls than Bears. Perhaps it is the optimism of human nature that accounts for this, or perhaps it is the fact that to buy is more natural than to sell, especially when the operator has got nothing to sell. Whatever may be the explanation, some of those who are frequently Bulls themselves regard with horror anything in the nature of a Bear transaction. ”

“ Unless a Bear so situated can make terms with the one to whom he has sold the stock, or with someone who will let him have it, he stands in the position of one who cannot meet his engagements, or, to use another term of Stock Exchange zoology, applied to all members struggling against imminent difficulties, he is a Lame Duck. ”

“ He who sells that, of which he is not possessed, is said proverbially to sell the bear's skin, while the bear runs in the woods. And it being common for stockjobbers to make contracts for transferring stock at a future time, though they were not possessed of the stock to be transferred, they are called sellers of bearskins. ”

“ The scientific way to measure the value of speculators in wide markets is to consider the bull as one whose purchases in times of falling prices serve to minimize the decline, and the bear as one who serves a doubly useful purpose in minimizing the advance by his short sales and in checking the decline by covering those sales. ”

“ From this point of view the man who sells property he does not immediately possess is thought to be a menace, who depresses prices artificially and works a disadvantage to the investor or, in the produce markets, to the producer. Nothing could be more fallacious than this, because of the fact that just as77 every routine sale of actual stock requires a buyer, so every short sale by a bear requires a purchase by him of equal magnitude. ”

“ In fact, to some minds such selection is tantamount to knocking down the price, to the severe loss of those who hold the securities. We are always hearing of the wicked Bears, but never of the wicked Bulls. In a hazy kind of way, indeed, the Bull with his optimism is supposed to perform a public service. These ideas are perhaps not very sound, but they are at all events natural. All that, however, is a subject for the metaphysician; it suffices here to remark that just as Bull operators are more popular than Bear operators, so are call options more popular than put options. ”

“ Your proposition that the bears will be the only beneficiaries I regard as rot; on the contrary, I know that the people will benefit a dollar where the combined bears will benefit a cent. Pardon my giving you here an A B C lesson in finance—I know a bear is no more dishonest than a bull. When a man tries to put up the price of stocks and bonds, he is a bull. When he tries to put them down, he is a bear. If a bull tries to put prices to a point of fair worth, he is an honest bull. ”

“ As the first half of the year is favourable for the bull speculator, so the second half is more likely to favour the operations of the bear. When people have had their outing and spent their money, they return to business, and to think of the necessity of prudently providing the comforts needful in the chilly autumn and cold winter. Business begins to slacken in many important branches with the approach of that period of the year when the days and nights come to be of equal length all over the earth, except just under the pole. ”

“ Bears, on the other hand, try to bring prices down, they being commonly persons who have sold and undertaken to deliver more stock than they are in possession of, and who are therefore under the necessity of buying in at a loss in order to settle their accounts. ”

“ In theory, therefore, there should be at least as many bears as bulls in all active markets, but in practice the large majority are always bulls, to whose sanguine and credulous natures the bear is a thing apart—a gloomy and misanthropic person hovering about like a vulture awaiting the carrion of a misfortune in the hope of a profit. Naturally the layman cannot understand him, and would like to suppress him. ”

“ Wall Street has seen many of them, and with perhaps one exception the records agree that the chronic pessimists have not succeeded. Fortune seems to have smiled on them at intervals; in the country’s early days of construction and development mistakes were made that brought about disaster, but in the long run such tremendous progress has resulted in America as to defeat the aspirations of any man or group of men who stood in its way. The big bears, as a rule, have “over-stayed the market.” ”

“ To-day there is no law on the English Statute books restricting speculation in any form. In America the New York State Legislature enacted a law in 1812 and the Federal Government in 1864, both designed to prevent short selling. These laws have also been repealed and they will not be revived. The bear has come to stay. As a spectre to frighten amateurs, he may continue for a time to stalk abroad o’ nights; as a necessary and useful part of all business he is a substantial reality. ”

“ The term bull is applied to those who are purchasers of stock for long account, with the purpose of advancing prices, as the tendency of a bull is to elevate everything within his reach. The term bear is applied to those who sell short stock, with the purpose of depreciating values. The bear operates for a decline in prices. The broker's charge for his services is called a commission, which in the New York Stock Exchange is one eighth of one per cent. each way on a par value of the security purchased or sold. A point means one per cent. ”