All terms
Crash
A sudden, very steep drop in stock prices within a few days or weeks.
A crash is a violent fall in prices over a short period, often triggered by a shock and amplified by panic selling. Unlike a bear market, it happens very fast.
Example: in the Covid crash the DAX fell almost 40 % between mid-February and mid-March 2020. Other well-known crashes were 1987, the dot-com bust from 2000 and the 2008 financial crisis.
Crashes cannot be predicted. In the past, broadly diversified markets have recovered after every crash, sometimes quickly, sometimes only after years. There is no guarantee of that.