What does a rabbit or a wolf do in the stock market?  

All of you are acquainted with the term stock market. It refers to a market for the trading of company and individual stocks. But what are stocks in the first place? Well, they refer to the capital raised by a firm through the issue of shares and the total number of shares in turn is held by individual shareholders. All these may seem confusing at a glance, but if you do your research a bit, then it will be easy to get a grip on these concepts. But today, we are going to tell you about a weird aspect of the stock market. Wait, what is it? Well, the stock market is full of animal names, used as metaphors. Here’s looking at what each animal symbolises. 

Rabbit 
Rabbits are generally used to refer to intraday (single day) traders who are looking to make quick profits. They are the ones who keep buying stocks to keep up their position for a short duration. In fact, they are often known to make impulsive decisions without considering the potential consequences. 

Pig 
If you know someone who takes too much risks in the stock market, you may refer to him as a pig. A pig is thus an investor who spends in speculative stocks and even takes up too much debt. The bad news is, majority of the times, they end up incurring huge losses. But on rare occasions they make profits too and those turn out to be massive. 

Wolf 
Have you seen the 2013 blockbuster film The Wolf of Wall Street? Well, if you have, you may remember Jordan Belfort who takes a hit after a stock market crash but ends up teaming with Donnie Azoff and cheats his way to the top. So, in simple terms, Belfort here is the wolf.  

As you can guess, wolfs are those powerful investors who can go to any length (including taking unethical and illegal steps) to rise to the top and make money. In fact, they are hardly reluctant to run scams and engage in frauds to earn more profits.  

Ostrich 
In case you didn’t know, ostriches are known for ignoring potentially harmful or unpleasant situations, hoping that they will resolve or disappear in their own good time. But the real world, especially that of the stock markets is hardly that predictable. So, if a market condition is getting gradually worse, it’s smart to withdraw the investments. But guess what? Ostriches don’t do that. Instead, they wait for the market to get back to normal organically with time and believe that their stocks would be just fine along the way. 

Sheep 
Simply put, in stock market, sheep are those who follow others blindly. In fact, the name suggests the herd mentality of sheep. So, when an investor is not confident to make his or her own investment by applying their stock market knowledge and experience, he or she imitate the strategies of their peers and fellow investors without putting in any thoughts or efforts into them. This can often be dangerous as they can be intentionally mislead. 

Whale 
As the name suggests, a whale refers to a large, hotshot investor who knows all the ABCs of the stock market and more. This person is often associated with a hedge fund or a corporate giant and has a significant market influence, so much so, that this buying or selling stocks can lead to a sudden and deep surge or decline in the market. A whale often has a large amount of capital lying around for investment.