Bulls and Bears
The bull represents investors who are optimistic about future prospects of the stock market and believe an upward trending market is on, however, the bear depicts an investor who is convinced that the market is headed for a fall.
A bear and bull market later came to refer to market conditions based on the above terms. A bull market is when the market appears to be in a long-term climb. A bear market describes a market that appears to be in a long-term decline.
Stags
Stags are those investors who buy initial public offering (IPO) of a company and sell them as soon as the stock is listed and trading commences. These investors take advantage of the rising stock price which enables them to make a fast profit. It is also known as stagging and the individual is known as a stag.
Chickens and Pigs
Chickens refer to individuals who are fearful of the stock market and stay away. Their fear overrides their need to make profits so they stick to conservative instruments such as bonds, bank deposits or company deposits. Their risk tolerance in investment terms is very low.
On the other hand, the pigs embrace risk. They are impatient and willing to take a high risk. They make investment based on hot tips and want to make a quick money in a hurry. These are the ones who burn their fingers and lose money in the market.
Wolves
Wolves in the stock market are those powerful individuals who can employ criminal or unethical means to make money. Such rapacious or ferocious individuals are behind scams that jolt the market when it comes to light.
A wolf market is sometimes used to describe the acts of various individuals working together to manipulate the market.
Dead Cat Bounce
This is stock market slang to refer to a temporary recovery. It could mean a temporary upswing of the market in the midst of a bear run or it could refer to select stocks. A dead cat bounce is a small and short-lived recovery post which the downtrend will continue. It stems from the explanation that if you throw a dead cat against a wall at a high rate of speed, it will bounce – but it is still dead.
Ostriches
Ostrich are those kinds of investors who bury their heads in the sand during bad markets hoping that their portfolio won’t get severely affected.
These kinds of investors ignore negative news with an expectation that they will eventually go away and will not impact their investments. Ostrich investors believe that if they do not know how their portfolio is doing, it might somehow survive and come out alright.
Rabbits
The term rabbits are used to describe those investors who take a position for a very short period of time. The trading time of these traders is typically in minutes.
These types of traders are scalpers and trying to scalp profits during the day. They do not want overnight (or long-term) risk and just looking for an opportunity to make some quick profit during the day.
Turtle
The turtles are those typically those investors who are slow to buy, slow to sell, and trades for the long-term time frame. They look at the long-term frame and try to make the least possible number of traders. This kind of investors does not care about the short-term fluctuations and most concerned with long-term returns.
Sheep
Sheep are those kinds of investors who stick to one investing style and do not change according to the market conditions.
They are usually the last ones to enter an uptrend and the last one to get out of a downtrend. The sheep like to be on the side of the majority (herd) and follow a guru. They are not interested to develop their own investing/trading method.
Dogs
Dogs are those stocks which have been beaten down by the market due to their poor performance. Many financial analysts look into the dog stocks closely as they expect these stocks to recover in upcoming days.
Lame ducks
A lame duck is a type investor who trades and ends up with a huge loss. Lame ducks have either defaulted on their debts or gone bankrupt due to the inability to cover trading losses.
Whale and Sharks
These are the big investors who can move the stock price when they buy or sell in the market. Meanwhile, Shares are those traders who are just concerned about making money. They get into the trades, makes money and exits the share market. The sharks have very little interest in big complicated methods of making money from the market.
