Basics
Bull / Bear
Bull markets rise, bear markets fall. A bullish trader expects prices to go up, a bearish trader expects them to fall.
Also called: bullish, bearish
In practice
When the S&P 500 prints higher highs for months, commentators call it a bull market. If gold then breaks its uptrend and starts carving lower lows, traders describe the metal as bearish. The same word applies to an opinion: being 'bullish EUR/USD' means expecting it to rise.
Why it matters for traders
These labels define the direction of your bias and your trade plan. The cardinal sin is fighting the trend — being bearish in a bull market because price 'feels too high'. Identifying whether you are trading with or against the prevailing bull or bear regime should be the first filter on any setup.
Common pitfall
The mistake is declaring a market 'too high' and shorting into a bull trend, or 'too cheap' and catching a falling knife. Price can stay extended far longer than feels rational. The trend, not your sense of value, is the primary filter. Before fading a move, wait for confirmed lower-highs or higher-lows on a higher timeframe — fighting the prevailing bull or bear regime is the most common and expensive beginner error.
Putting it in context
Within the basics group, this term is one of the building blocks every later concept assumes you know. Beginners are often tempted to skip ahead to strategies and indicators, but most costly errors trace back to a shaky grasp of foundational ideas like this one — how prices are quoted, how trades are sized, and how money actually moves in and out of a position. A practical way to lock it in: after reading the definition, open a demo account and find a live example of this term on a real chart or order ticket within the next day. Concepts that stay abstract get forgotten; ones you have seen with your own eyes on EURUSD or gold tend to stick, and they compound as you move into risk management and analysis.
Lessons that use this term
- Bullish vs bearish candles
What candle colour really tells you — and the mistake almost every beginner makes with it.
- Hammer and Inverted Hammer
The two bullish reversal candles that appear at the bottom of a move.
- Bullish and Bearish Engulfing
The two-candle takeover: when one side wipes out the entire previous period.
Related terms
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