A new term for today that, unfortunately, is timely: “dead cat bounce,” which refers to the tendency for a spectacular decline in the price of a stock to be immediately followed by a moderate and temporary rise before resuming its downward movement. According to Wikipedia, the term comes from “the notion that even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height.”
Personally, I think the term should be used more often, and its meaning extended to realms beyond economic and the political it seems restricted to at the moment. For example: Your trainwreck friend shows up to an evening out with a new and surprisingly appealing significant other. They drink a moderate amount, make pleasant conversation and return home safely without starting a physical altercation. Everyone remarks on how well the friend seems to have pulled his or her life together, but you assure everyone that the night’s good show is merely a dead cat bounce and that the downward-spiraling friend will mostly be one the news by Monday, if not Sunday.
