Long Position
A long position means owning a security with the expectation that its price will rise over time.
Being long simply means you own something. If you buy 100 shares of a company and hold them, you have a long position in that stock. You benefit if the price goes up and lose money if it goes down. Most individual investors hold only long positions.
The opposite is a short position, where an investor sells borrowed shares and benefits from a falling price. The terms are also used in options and futures trading, where going long means holding a contract that gains when the underlying asset rises.
The maximum loss on a long stock position bought without borrowed money is the amount invested, because a stock price cannot fall below zero. The potential gain has no fixed upper limit. That risk profile is the reverse of short selling, where gains are capped and losses are open-ended.
Example: you buy 50 shares at $40, a $2,000 long position. If the price rises to $48, the position is worth $2,400. If the company fails and the stock goes to zero, you lose the $2,000.