The "daily Call" From Option Alpha: Options Trading | Stock Options | Stock Trading | Trading Online

Hey everyone. This is Kirk here again from Option Alpha and welcome back to the daily call. Today, we’re going to answer the question, “What does long and short mean in trading?” Long and short are often terms used all the time in options trading in just general stock or regular equity investing and you might often heard me say it here on this podcast or on some of our video updates that I would be long an out of the money call option or short an in the money put option or short an out of the money put option. And so, a lot of people get confused on the meaning of long and short, but it’s actually pretty straightforward and pretty simple. Long basically means that you have a positive number of contracts in your account, typically that you’ve purchased contracts into your account. You bought a call option, bought a put option. It doesn’t matter where they are in the option chain. They could be in the money, out of the money, different expiration dates. But basically, long means that you own option contracts in