What does the term ‘bearish’ mean?

Beginner Questions
1

Also, seeing loads of chats about bearish movements? If anyone can enlighten me!

2

im sure you get more explanation s,but it means the market is going down as oppose to a bull move, an upward move

3

A ‘Bear’ market is one that is in decline - where more people are selling as opposed to buying, moving the market down.

A ‘Bull’ market is one that is in incline - where more people are buying as opposed to selling, moving the market up.

The terms Bullish or Bearish are then used to describe certain aspects around that…
E.g.

  • There is bearish price action (The price is heading down)
  • Elon Musk is bullish on copper (He believes the price of copper will continue heading up)
  • If you are a bearish investor you are typically looking for opportunities to short the market

Hope that helps

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4

Bear = Bears attack w/ their arm swooping down = market go down
Bull = Bulls attack w/ their horn stabbing up = market go up
Pigs get slaughtered

5

It is worth remembering that these terms were originally applied to the stock markets, where prices either rose or fell. “Bearish” means a negative expectation that an economy/company is doing badly and therefore share prices will fall whereas “bullish” means a positive expectation that an economy/company is doing well and that share prices will rise.

However, in forex we are talking about currency pairs and this means than when we are bearish/negative about one currency in the pair we are automatically being bullish/positive about the other currency in the pair. One currency is weak relative to the other which is stronger.

Trading forex means trading the relative strength of one currency compared with the weakness of the other. So you are bullish on the currency you think is strong and bearish on the other currency in the pair.

6

And there’s more - why say I’m long such and such - how did that term come about.

It all pre-dates the current market.

A ‘bearish’ market comes from the the bearskin jobbers - middlemen who sold the skins before the bear was even caught.
The act of short selling is far older than the stock market, and it’s where we get the term “bear market” - Valens Research (valens-research.com)

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Here’s the definition of bearish in our Forexpedia.