Barry Ritholtz, Columnist

How to Spot a Bull or Bear Market

Defining a market by percentage changes doesn't offer the insight needed to make investment decisions.

August 14, 2017 at 12:18 PM EDT

Barry Ritholtz is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is chairman and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, and was previously chief market strategist at Maxim Group. He is the author of “Bailout Nation.”

Who's in charge now?
Photographer: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg

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What is a bear market?

The popular definition is a 20 percent drop from peak to trough in multiple broad market indexes. I have seen similar round numbers in other definitions -- e.g., a correction is a 10 percent decline, a dip is a 5 percent drop and a crash is a fall of 30 percent or more.

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