Long Position

A long position makes money when the exit price is above the entry price, after costs. In shares you buy the shares. In futures you buy the contract. In options you can be long by buying a call or by selling a put, and those are not the same risk. The glossary default is the simple long: you benefit from higher prices and you lose from lower prices. "Long" does not mean the trade is long-term. A scalp can be long for seconds. The word is the direction, not the holding period.

You are long once the order is filled, not when you decide. The risk is the distance from the fill to the stop, times the size, plus slippage and fees. A long under resistance with the stop far below is a different trade from a long that has just broken out with the stop under the breakout bar. Write entry, stop, and target before the fill. After the fill, the plan is a record. Changing the stop downward because the trade "needs room" is a new trade you did not size.

Take longs in the direction of the higher-timeframe structure you actually trade, or at a level where you have a defined failed-breakdown. The long is the position. The setup is the reason. Do not let a bullish opinion replace the stop. If you cannot name the price that proves the long wrong, you do not have a position. You have a hope, and hopes get averaged.

Calling a long "safe" because the story is good. Direction and safety are unrelated. Also forgetting costs on a small long, where the target is smaller than the spread and the commission. And assuming a long option and a long share lose in the same way. Time decay can sink a long option while the share goes sideways.

A long has unlimited upside only in theory and on paper. In practice the exit you will actually take, the circuit limit, and the liquidity define the outcome. A long can gap through the stop. The loss is then larger than the plan. Size for the gap if the instrument gaps, instead of pretending the stop is a guaranteed fill.