Market trend
tendency of a financial market to move in a particular direction over time
A market trend is a perceived tendency of the financial markets to move in a particular direction over time. Analysts classify these trends as secular for long time-frames, primary for medium time-frames, and secondary for short time-frames. Traders attempt to identify market trends using technical analysis, a framework which characterizes market trends as predictable price tendencies within the market when price reaches support and resistance levels, varying over time.
A future market trend can only be determined in hindsight, since at any time prices in the future are not known. This fact makes market timing inherently a game of educated guessing rather than a certainty. Past trends are identified by drawing lines, known as trendlines, that connect price action making higher highs and higher lows for an uptrend, or lower lows and lower highs for a downtrend.
Market terminology
The terms "bull market" and "bear market" describe upward and downward market trends, respectively, and can be used to describe either the market as a whole or specific sectors and securities. The terms come from London's Exchange Alley in the early 18th century, where traders who engaged in naked short selling were called "bear-skin jobbers" because they sold a bear's skin (the shares) before catching the bear (the closing trade). This was simplified to "bears," while traders who bought shares on credit were called "bulls." The latter term might have originated by analogy to bear-baiting and bull-baiting, two animal fighting sports of the time. Thomas Mortimer recorded both terms in his 1761 book Every Man His Own Broker.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Market trend” as tendency of a financial market to move in a particular direction over time. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1004322. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1761.
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This entry incorporates text from “Market trend” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.