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Topic
Market cycles
13 guides in Finabase Learn
- Accumulation A phase in which informed buyers quietly build positions after a decline, often seen as a sideways range on rising volume.
- All-time high The highest price a security or index has ever reached; a stock at an all-time high has no overhead resistance from past buyers.
- Bear market A broad decline of 20% or more from a recent high in a major index, usually lasting months and accompanied by pessimism.
- Black swan A rare, extreme and largely unforeseen event with major market consequences, rationalized only after the fact.
- Bull and bear markets: definitions, corrections and history What makes a bull or bear market, the 10% and 20% conventions, how often big declines have happened, and what SPY’s 2022 bear market and 2025 correction looked like.
- Bull market A sustained rise in a major index, commonly dated from a 20% gain off a bear-market low, accompanied by optimism.
- Business cycle The recurring rise and fall of economic activity through expansion, peak, contraction and trough.
- Capitulation A burst of panic selling, often on very high volume, as holders give up; it sometimes marks the late stage of a decline.
- Correction A decline of roughly 10% to 20% from a recent high in a stock or index, shorter and shallower than a bear market.
- Distribution A topping phase in which large holders sell into strength, often seen as a range with heavy volume on down days.
- NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee The group of economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research that officially dates US recession peaks and troughs.
- Rally A sustained rise in the price of a stock, index or other asset, from a short bounce lasting days to an advance lasting months.
- Recession A significant, widespread decline in economic activity lasting more than a few months; in the US the dates are set by the NBER.
Educational content, not investment advice. Finabase Learn explains how markets and tools work. It does not recommend any security or strategy, and examples are for illustration only. Investing involves risk, including the loss of principal. Rules and figures are for the United States unless stated and can change — check the cited source before you act.