Bull (stock market speculator)
[1] Strictly speaking, the term applies to speculators who borrow[2] money to fund such a purchase, and are thus under great pressure to complete the transaction before the loan is repayable or the seller of the stock demands payment on settlement day for delivery of the bargain.
If the value of the stock falls contrary to their expectation, a bull suffers a loss, frequently very large if they are trading on margin.
A bull must be contrasted with an investor, who purchases a stock in expectation of a medium-term (5 years) or long-term increase in value due to the underlying performance of the company and its assets.
An early mention of the terms bull and bear appears in the 1769 edition of Thomas Mortimer's book Every Man his own Broker, published in London, as follows, relating to speculators operating in Jonathan's Coffee-House in Exchange Alley (the original London proto-Stock Exchange):[4] This refers to the former practice of stock-brokers, abolished circa 1980's in London, allowing their clients to trade on credit during a period of about two weeks, known as an account, on the completion of which all purchases and sales made during the account period had to be paid for on the settlement date.
Several bronze statues of bulls representing positive investor sentiment exist near the locations of several stock markets or brokerage houses, for example:
