crab market

English

Etymology

From the movement of a crab, which appears to move sideways and seems to be going neither forward (a bull market, in this metaphor) or backward (a bear market).

Noun

crab market (plural crab markets)

1. (finance) A market trend where a stock keeps fluctuating around the same price over a longer period of time, neither entering a bull market nor a bear market

   Coordinate terms: bear market, bull market

   • 1989, Joseph L. Shaefer, Bringing Home the Gold, Dow Jones-Irwin, →ISBN, page 161:

     Writing covered options is a technique to use when we're not in a bull market or a bear market, but a crab market. (I call any market that moves sideways for any length of time a crab market. This is not simply because crabs move sideways, but because people, deprived of their daily dose of market action, tend to get pretty crabby during these periods.)

   • 1993 February 25, Brent Buckner, “da Bears vs. da Bulls”, in misc.invest‎^[1] (Usenet):

     There could be an extended "crab" market: the index stays pretty much flat for long enough that the fundamentals eventually catch up. It has happened before.

   • 1994, Bruce McDougall, Michael Reardon, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Personal Finance for Canadians, Pearson Education Canada, →ISBN, page 72:

     A crab market moves sideways. (This could go on forever. Anyone for tuna?)

   • 2006, Marquez Comelab, The Part-Time Currency Trader, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 95:

     A 'crab' market is when the market just traverses sideways, oscillating in a channel, between an imaginary 'floor' level and an imaginary 'ceiling' level.

   • 2021 October 29, Carlo Requião da Cunha, Introduction to Econophysics‎^[2], CRC Press, →ISBN:

     A crab market is defined here as a market where the difference between the close and open prices is not greater than ±5 % of the open price.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see crab,‎ market.
   • 2014 October 7, Addie K. Martin, Jeremy Martin, Southeast Louisiana Food‎^[3], Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN:

     Overall, the crab industry is faring well right now. The higher price of shrimp actually is a good thing for the crab market because crab is a higher-priced, premium item.

   • 2016, Sharda Padghane, Shivaji Chavan, Dilip Dudhmal, “Fresh water crab Barytelphusa cunicularis as a food commodity: Weekly crab market study of Nanded city, Maharashtra, India”, in International Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Studies‎^[4], volume 4, number 4, →ISSN, page 17:

     Through the current study of weekly crab markets, monsoon season was observed to be the most productive season in terms of number of crabs brought for sale by the crab sellers from the nearby area.