RIPPLE

A term used by "The Dow Theory" author, Robert Rhea, to describe the day-to-day fluctuations in stock market price activity. Rhea wrote that three simultaneous movements of stock prices occur that can be compared to tides, waves and ripples. The Dow Theory, published in 1932, indicated that speculators attempt to ride the tides and the occasional big waves, and that only reckless investors would ever attempt to profit by the day-to-day price changes or ripples.