A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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Entry from December 08, 2009
Sucker Rally (Sucker’s Rally)

A “sucker rally” (or “sucker’s rally”) is a brief rally that is not sustained. It is similar to the “dead cat bounce,” where a stock has fallen so far that, like a dead cat thrown off the top of a building, there will be a small bounce upward after it hits bottom.
 
“Sucker rally” is cited in print from 1982.
   
     
Investopedia
Sucker Rally
A temporary rise in a specific stock or the market as a whole. A sucker rally occurs with little fundamental information to back the movement in price. This rally may continue just long enough for the “suckers” to get on board, after which the market or specific stock falls. 
 
Also known as a “dead cat bounce” or a “bull trap”.
   
Word Spy
sucker rally
n. A short-lived gain in the stock market. Also: sucker’s rally.
(...)
Earliest Citation:
Coinciding with the topping out of the June-July sucker rally, we have the greatest lineup ever of analysts turning bullish (but) there was absolutely no technical reason to buy stocks.
—George Linton, “Analysts’ comments dispel some of summer’s optimism,” The Globe and Mail, August 7, 1982
 
Time magazine
Wall Street’s Super Streak
Monday, Sep. 06, 1982
(...)
Despite the delirium, however, nagging questions remain: What, if anything, do the sound and fury in the stock market signify? Why the incredible, almost insane, trading volume? Is this a suckers’ rally or the beginning of a sustained bull market? Why has the momentum been so strong when the prospects for economic recovery are so uncertain?
   
Google Books
13 September 1982, Newsweek, pg. ?: (Page and date not clear—ed.)
...whether it was, in fact, the beginning of a genuine bull market or just a “sucker” rally.
 
12 November 1982, Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer, “Bears take a beating waiting for the collapse” by Arthur Howe, pg. C13:
The irrepressible stock prognosticator compares the current bull run to the “sucker rally” of 1928-29 that preceded the Depression.
   
14 November 1982, New York (NY) Times, “Bull Market in Words” by William Safire, pg. SM25:
A bull trap is a rally that is destined to fail, and is sometimes called a sucker rally.

Posted by Barry Popik
New York CityBanking/Finance/Insurance • Tuesday, December 08, 2009 • Permalink


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