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One of three sample lessons. The other 247 open with membership.See membership

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Module 1 · The two trades · lesson 1 of 7 · stage 1 of 3 · beginner

What BUY means

5 minbeginnersample lesson
A price path rising from a marked entry, the long trade drawn as owning something that goes up.
Objective
Say, in one sentence, what you own after a buy order fills and what has to happen for the position to make money.

A buy order that fills gives you shares. From that moment you own a piece of the company and you are exposed to its price: if the price goes up, the position is worth more; if it goes down, it is worth less. Nothing else happens until you sell.

Traders call this being long. "Long 100 AAPL" means you own 100 shares of Apple and you make money if Apple rises. The word is about direction, not about how long you hold — a long trade can last ten minutes or ten years.

The arithmetic of a long
Buy100 shares at $100 → you pay $10,000
Price rises to $120the shares are worth $12,000
Sell100 shares at $120 → you receive $12,000
Result+$2,000 before commissions

How much of a rise like that was the name and how much was the market it trades in is worth seeing once, because a rising tape lifts most longs with it and a long that rose is not yet a name that did anything.

How much of a long's move was the market
Interactive · your numbers
The long moved
+15.0%
Of which, the tape
+12.0%
1.2 × +10%
Of which, the name
+3.0%
In a flat tape
+3.0%
what the name alone would have done
grey is the tape's share of the move (80%), gold the name's
A stock's move is drawn here as beta times the market's move, plus a part that was the name's own. In a rising market most longs rise, and most of that rise is the market: the same position in a flat tape would have moved by the name's part alone. That part is what the platform's factor readings are trying to describe; the tape's part is what any long would have had.

The most you can lose on a long, with no leverage, is what you paid: the price can fall to zero and no further. That floor is the single biggest difference between a long and a short, and the next lessons build on it.

NOTE
On this platform a long call is a description of what the data shows for a name — a grade, the factors behind it, and a plan with a stop and a target. It is never an instruction to buy.
Key takeaway
Long means you own it and you want the price to rise; the most you can lose is what you paid.
Common mistakes
  • Thinking "long" means holding for a long time.
  • Forgetting that a buy that fills costs the full amount immediately, even if the price then moves in your favour.
Test your knowledge · 5 questions
1. You buy 50 shares at $40. The price goes to $30 and you have not sold. What is true?
2. What is the most you can lose on a long stock position bought with your own cash?
3. "Long 200 MSFT" means
4. When does a long position's price gain become real?
5. A grade of A on a long call in this platform is
Answer every question to check.
Completing a lesson or a quiz records that you finished an educational module for your own use. It does not assess trading skill and grants no certification.

The quiz checks and explains here as it does for a member; without an account the score is not saved.

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The other 247 lessons open with membership.

Every lesson on the path, its quiz, the reading orders, the review and the simulator on real bars are part of one IntellaZone membership. The membership page says whether it is open and what it costs; the syllabus lists every lesson.

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