Bear Market

A bear market is when stock prices across the market fall 20% or more from recent highs and stay down for months or longer. You'll hear this term constantly in financial news because it affects everyone's portfolio—your savings, retirement accounts, and investment returns all take a hit. Bear markets happen regularly (roughly every few years) and are a normal part of how markets work, even though they feel scary when you're living through one. For example, if the overall market drops 25% over six months, investors would say we're in a bear market. The opposite is a bull market, when prices rise steadily. The key thing to remember: bear markets are temporary, and historically, markets always recover.