Meaning of Long and Short

There are several Forex terms you will hear over the next little while, but the ones you will hear the most refer to the ups and downs of the market.

Terms that relate to the markets going up:
Buy – to enter a trade with the expectation that the value rises, or the chart goes up.
Long – as to take a Long position, you can go Long.
Bull – as in a Bull market, the Bulls have taken control, currently you are Bullish on the Euro.

Terms that relate to the market going down:
Sell – to enter a trade with the expectation that the value falls, or the chart goes down.
Short – as to take a Short position, go Short the market, Shorting the Pound.
Bear – as in a Bear market, the Bears have taken control, you can be Bearish the dollar.

The terms Long and Short come from when you could only make money when the markets went up. It was said that it took a long time to make money, but a short time to lose it.

With all fairness, we can’t leave out the sideways markets, after all, sideways is a direction too.

Some terms that relate to a sideways market are:

Consolidation
Rangebound
Lamb

So there you have it, the longs and shorts, the buys and sells and of course the bulls and the bears.

Best regards
Russ