Position

Short description: Amount of a certain security, commodity or currency held or owned by a person/entity

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Assets

* Bond
* Commodity
* Derivatives
* Foreign exchange
* Money
* Over-the-counter
* Private equity
* Real estate
* Spot
* Stock

Participants

* Investor
* institutional
* Retail
* Speculator

Locations

* Financial centres
* Offshore financial centres
* Conduit and Sink OFCs

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* Bond
* Cash
* Collateralised debt obligation
* Credit default swap
* Time deposit (certificate of deposit)
* Credit line
* Deposit
* Derivative
* Futures contract
* Indemnity
* Insurance
* Letter of credit
* Loan
* Mortgage

* Option (call
* exotic
* put)}}
* performance bonds
* Repurchase agreement
* Stock
* Security
* Syndicated loan
* Synthetic CDO

In finance, a position is the amount of a particular security, commodity or currency held or owned by a person or entity.[1]

In financial trading, a position in a futures contract does not reflect ownership but rather a binding commitment to buy or sell a given number of financial instruments, such as securities, currencies or commodities, for a given price.[2]

## Contents

* 1 Trading and financial assets
* 1.1 Long position
* 1.2 Short position
* 1.3 Bull position
* 1.4 Bear position
* 1.5 Net position
* 2 See also
* 3 References

## Trading and financial assets

In derivatives trading or for financial instruments, the concept of a position is used extensively. There are two basic types of position: a long (holding a positive amount of the instrument) and a short (holding a negative amount of the instrument). Generally speaking, long positions stand to gain from a rise of the price of the instrument and short positions from a fall (but with options the situation is more complicated).

Options will be used in the following explanations. The same principle applies for futures and other securities. For simplicity, only one contract is being traded in these examples.

### Long position

* When a trader buys an option contract that he is not short, he is said to be opening a long position.
* When a trader sells an option contract that he is already long, he is said to be closing a long position.

### Short position

* When a trader sells an option contract that he is not long, he is said to be opening a short position.
* When a trader buys an option contract that he is already short, he is said to be closing a short position.

### Bull position

A trader holding a bull position will benefit when the price of the underlying goes up. This is equivalent to holding a long position on most financial instruments, but also a short position on put options, inverse ETFs or similar.

### Bear position

A trader holding a bear position will benefit when the price of the underlying goes down. This is equivalent to holding a short position on most financial instruments, but also a long position on put options, inverse ETFs or similar.

### Net position

Net position is the difference between total open long (receivable) and open short (payable) positions in a given asset (security, foreign exchange currency, commodity, etc.) held by an individual. This also refers to the amount of assets held by a person, firm, or financial institution, as well as the ownership status of a person's or institution's investments.

## See also

* Arbitrage

## References

1. ↑ "Position". Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/position.asp.
2. ↑ Harvey, Campbell R. (2011). "Position". Financial Glossary. Nasdaq. https://www.nasdaq.com/investing/glossary/p/position.

* v
* t
* e

Financial markets

Types of markets|

* Primary market
* Secondary market
* Third market
* Fourth market

Types of stocks|

* Common stock
* Golden share
* Preferred stock
* Restricted stock
* Tracking stock

Share capital|

* Authorised capital
* Issued shares
* Shares outstanding
* Treasury stock

Participants|

* Broker-dealer
* Day trader
* Floor broker
* Floor trader
* Investor
* Market maker
* Proprietary trader
* Quantitative analyst
* Financial law
* Regulator
* Stock trader

Exchanges|

* Electronic communication network
* List of stock exchanges
* Trading hours
* Multilateral trading facility
* Over-the-counter

Stock valuation|

* Alpha
* Arbitrage pricing theory
* Beta
* Bid–ask spread
* Book value
* Capital asset pricing model
* Capital market line
* Dividend discount model
* Dividend yield
* Earnings per share
* Earnings yield
* Net asset value
* Security characteristic line
* Security market line
* T-model

Trading theories
and strategies|

* Algorithmic trading
* Buy and hold
* Contrarian investing
* Day trading
* Dollar cost averaging
* Efficient-market hypothesis
* Fundamental analysis
* Growth stock
* Market timing
* Modern portfolio theory
* Momentum investing
* Mosaic theory
* Pairs trade
* Post-modern portfolio theory
* Random walk hypothesis
* Sector rotation
* Style investing
* Swing trading
* Technical analysis
* Trend following
* Value averaging
* Value investing

Related terms|

* Block trade
* Cross listing
* Dark pool
* Dividend
* Dual-listed company
* DuPont analysis
* Efficient frontier
* Flight-to-quality
* Government bond
* Haircut
* Initial public offering
* Long
* Margin
* Market anomaly
* Market capitalization
* Market depth
* Market manipulation
* Market trend
* Mean reversion
* Momentum
* Open outcry
* Position
* Public float
* Public offering
* Rally
* Returns-based style analysis
* Reverse stock split
* Share repurchase
* Short selling
* Slippage
* Speculation
* Stock dilution
* Stock exchange
* Stock market index
* Stock split
* Trade
* Uptick rule
* Volatility
* Voting interest
* Yield

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