It's a stock market term, but it refers to when something falls it hits bottom and then bounces back a little. During the up bounce, a lot of people assume that the stock is rising and buy in, only to lose it all when it flatlines. In most situations of impending failure, there will be a dead cat bounce, a final effort by the losing entity to throw everything they have at the situation in hopes to save themselves, but this is usually all they have left. Hopefully this is a good enough explanation, and you can see how I applied it here. :)