bullish

Every family has that uncle who, once he catches wind that a new estate is going up near his hometown, starts telling everyone to buy land there quick, because in five years it will be worth triple. That uncle is bullish, and he does not even know the fancy word for it.

In investing, bullish simply describes someone who expects prices to go up. If you are bullish on a stock, a currency, or even Lagos real estate, you believe the value is heading north, so your instinct is to buy now while it is cheap, or hold what you already have instead of selling.

Say you own shares in a Nigerian bank on the NGX, and the bank just announced strong profits and a new digital lending product. You feel confident this will push the share price up over the next year, so you decide to buy more shares instead of cashing out. That is a bullish move.

The opposite is bearish, when someone expects prices to fall and starts selling or staying away. Markets themselves get described this way too. A bull market is one where prices have been climbing steadily, and everyone seems to be smiling at their portfolio.

For someone in London sending money home, being bullish on the naira might mean holding off converting pounds because you expect the exchange rate to favour you soon. Being bullish on Nigerian tech stocks might mean buying shares in a company like MTN Nigeria because you trust its growth story.

The word gets thrown around a lot on business news and in WhatsApp groups full of self declared analysts. It sounds impressive, but at its heart it is just a confident guess about tomorrow, dressed in a suit.