What is "head fake"

n. 1 (context sports English) A player's movement of the head as if to change direction, hoping to mislead pursuers. 2 (context figuratively English) Any analogously misleading situation, such as a brief rise before a fall on the stock market.

A head fake is a type of feint in which a player moves his or her head to fake a change in direction.

In financial markets, a head fake refers to a time when the market appears to be moving in one direction but ends up moving in the opposite direction. For example, the price of a stock may appear to move up, and all indications prior to that are that it will move up, but shortly after reverses direction and starts moving down.

In his "Last Lecture" titled " Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" (at Carnegie Mellon on September 18, 2007), Randy Pausch refers extensively to "head fakes." He describes as a "head fake," for example, the phenomenon of parents encouraging their children to play football. Parents tell their children to play sports not because they really want them to become football stars, he says, but to help them develop collaboration and socializing skills. His concluding remarks during the last 3–4 minutes present the final head fake of the lecture.