Bull vs Bear Market: What’s the Difference, Plus Corrections and Crashes Explained

A bull market is a long period of rising share prices, usually defined as a gain of 20% or more from a recent low. A bear market is the opposite: a fall of 20% or more from a recent high. A correction is a smaller drop of 10% to 20%, and a crash is a sudden, steep fall over a few days or even a single day. These labels appear in almost every market headline. Knowing what they really mean, and how often each happens, makes it much easier to stay calm when prices swing. This guide explains the differences, what history shows and what long-term investors can do in each phase.

What Is a Bull Market?

A bull market describes a sustained rise in a broad market index such as the S&P 500, usually accompanied by economic growth, rising company profits and confident investors. The most common working definition is a rise of at least 20% from the most recent bear-market low. No official body declares bull markets, so analysts and the media apply the threshold after the fact.

Bull markets tend to last far longer than bear markets. Hartford Funds, analysing S&P 500 data since 1928, finds that the average bull market has lasted about 992 days, or roughly 2.7 years, with an average gain of about 114%. That does not mean prices rise every week. Bull markets regularly include sharp pullbacks and corrections along the way.

What Is a Bear Market?

A bear market is a decline of 20% or more from a recent peak, typically lasting at least several weeks. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s investor education site, Investor.gov, describes it as a period when prices fall and widespread pessimism causes the negative sentiment to feed on itself.

Bear markets are painful but much shorter than bull markets. According to Hartford Funds, the average S&P 500 bear market since 1928 has lasted about 289 days, under 10 months, with an average decline of about 35%. There have been 27 bear markets over that period, which works out to one every few years on average.

Some bear markets coincide with recessions, such as 2008–09. Others do not. The two terms are different. In the US, recessions are dated by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) based on broad measures of economic activity such as jobs, income and spending, not on share prices.

What Is a Market Correction?

A correction is a fall of 10% to less than 20% from a recent high. Corrections are far more common than bear markets and often happen in the middle of a longer bull run. They are frequently triggered by worries over interest rates, inflation, company earnings or political events.

A recent example shows how fine the line can be. From its record close of 6,144.15 on 19 February 2025, the S&P 500 fell to 4,982.77 at the close on 8 April 2025, a drop of about 18.9%, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices data. During trading on 7 April it was briefly down by more than 20%. Using closing prices, that sell-off counts as a deep correction rather than a bear market, which is why different outlets described it differently at the time.

What Is a Stock Market Crash?

A crash has no precise numerical definition, but it refers to a sudden, dramatic fall in prices, usually over one day or a few days, often driven by panic selling. The most famous single-day example in modern history is “Black Monday” on 19 October 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by about 22.6%. The fall in March 2020, at the start of the pandemic, also produced several of the steepest daily drops on record.

A crash can be the start of a bear market, but not always. In 1987, the market recovered its losses within about two years, and the US economy did not fall into recession.

Bull vs Bear vs Correction vs Crash: How Do They Compare?

• Bull market: a rise of 20% or more from a low, typically lasting years.
• Bear market: a fall of 20% or more from a high, typically lasting months.
• Correction: a fall of 10% to under 20%, usually over weeks or months.
• Crash: a sudden steep fall over days, with no fixed threshold.

The thresholds are conventions, not laws of nature. A 19% fall feels very similar to a 21% fall. What matters more for most investors is the time they have before they need the money.

Why Are They Called “Bull” and “Bear”?

The origin is not certain, but the most common explanation is about how each animal attacks. A bull thrusts its horns upwards, while a bear swipes its paws downwards. The terms date back to 18th-century London, where “bear” also referred to speculators who sold shares they did not yet own, hoping to buy them back more cheaply. The bronze bull and bear sculptures outside the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, shown in this article’s featured image, are a well-known symbol of the idea.

How Should You Invest During a Bear Market?

No one can reliably predict when a bear market will start or end. Official investor education bodies in the US, UK, Canada and Australia all point to the same basic habits:

• Match investments to your time horizon. Money you need within the next few years should not depend on the stock market.
• Keep an emergency fund in cash so you are not forced to sell shares at a low point. See our guide to building an emergency fund.
• Diversify across companies, sectors and countries, for example through broad index funds and ETFs.
• Keep investing regularly if you can. Investing a fixed amount each month, known as dollar-cost averaging, means you buy more shares when prices are low.
• Rebalance back to your target mix of shares and bonds instead of reacting to headlines.
• Avoid panic selling. Selling after a big fall locks in the loss and risks missing the recovery, which has historically often started when the news still looked bleak.

Bear markets can also be a time when scams increase, with promises of guaranteed returns or “safe” alternative investments. Be especially wary of high-pressure offers involving crypto. Our coverage of Bitcoin price swings shows how volatile those assets can be.

How Should You Invest During a Bull Market?

Rising markets bring their own risks. As prices climb, it is easy to become overconfident, take on more risk than you intended or chase whatever has risen most recently. Good habits during a bull market include:

• Rebalancing, because rising shares can leave your portfolio more heavily weighted towards equities than you planned.
• Checking fees and avoiding high-cost products sold on the back of recent performance.
• Building up cash reserves and paying down expensive debt while times are good.
• Remembering that past returns do not guarantee future results.

How Do You Know When a Bear Market Has Ended?

Usually, only in hindsight. A bear market is generally considered over when the index has risen 20% or more from its low, but the low itself is known only after prices have climbed away from it. That is why trying to time the bottom is so difficult. Historically, many of the strongest days for the market have come close to its worst days, often during the same volatile period.

What Are the Key Takeaways?

• A bull market is a rise of 20% or more; a bear market is a fall of 20% or more.
• A correction is a decline of 10% to under 20%, and a crash is a sudden, steep fall.
• Since 1928, S&P 500 bull markets have averaged about 2.7 years and bear markets under 10 months.
• A bear market is not the same as a recession.
• Long-term investors usually do best by diversifying, keeping cash for emergencies and avoiding panic selling.

This article is general information and not financial advice. Investments can fall as well as rise, and you may get back less than you invested. Consider speaking to a regulated financial adviser about your own circumstances.

Featured image: Frankfurt am Main, Skulptur -Bulle & Bär- — 2015 — 6763, by Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped, colour-graded and combined with MediaPavilion branding.

Sources

• Hartford Funds — 10 things you should know about bear markets (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Investor.gov (US SEC) — Bear market (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Investor.gov (US SEC) — Market correction (accessed 25 October 2026).
• S&P Dow Jones Indices — S&P 500 (accessed 25 October 2026).
• National Bureau of Economic Research — Business cycle dating (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Federal Reserve History — Stock market crash of 1987 (accessed 25 October 2026).
• Investor.gov (US SEC) — Dollar cost averaging (accessed 25 October 2026).