The stock market is essentially a zoo.

It’s a zoo in the sense that it brings out various animals within us and that’s probably why we say that it’s the place of animal spirits.

Here is a quirky but spot-on list of some of the animals in this “zoo.”

The two most commonly known ones – Bull and Bear.

Bull – Aggressive, confident, optimism is their middle name and they are brimming with positivity, sometimes, exaggerated positivity. They push their horns up in the air, snort and go rushing – getting very hard to control sometimes.

Bear – This is the exact opposite of the bull – passive, pessimistic and look at only negative cues for direction. They are confident too but unlike the bull, confident that the markets will always have a downward bias and like a bear habit, prefer to hibernate – rather sleep than invest. A market correction is not a bear trend – the consistent fall over three months means all have turned bears.

Deer – This is the animal which most of us are currently – neutral. This animal trader prefers doing nothing, prefers to stay where he is, with very minimal levels of activity. Its main characteristic is ‘timid.’ If you the market as a directionless or listless, you will automatically turn into a deer.

Stags – This is a huge male deer and has a strange animal behavior – invests only in IPOs for listing gains.  Aim is to make a quick buck and wait for the next IPO.

Duck – someone who just floats around without any sense of one’s own need and direction. Such traders do nothing but just quack!

Fish – They have goals but the moment they see any reasonable opportunity, they dive into it, putting all their pre-set goals into the wind.

Chickens – they fear the markets and prefer FDs and other safe but low return investments. They are very conservative by nature

Pigs – high risk is their middle name. These are the traders who live for “tips” – they just want to quick money, by hook or crook. These are the one’s who get dirty and ultimately get slaughtered. Excessive greed and impatience as their main traits.

Wolves – predators who prey on gullible investors – selling stocks using unethical and criminal means to fill their own pockets. Most of the scams that we see are perpetrated by this breed of animal.

Ostrich – its main characteristic is that it sticks its neck into the sand whenever it senses danger, thinking that if it does not look, the danger will go away. These kind of traders ignore all negative news and think that if they don’t pay attention, it will go away and their portfolio will remain intact.

Whales – these are extremely big investors and they have the power to move the market to their sway.

Turtles – slow to buy, slow to sell and are basically long term investors – ‘buy it and forget it’ type.

Sheep – they just follow the herd with no investment aim or strategy to follow.

What animal are you?