Concept #2: Open a Trade, Close a Trade

Each transaction either opens a trade, or closes a trade (or position) in TradeLog.

 

 

When you go long in a stock, you buy the stock (with the hope that it will go up in value) and plan to sell the stock at a profit in the future. As your purchase ("buy") transaction is executed before the sale transaction, TradeLog will record the long "buy" transaction as Open, Long and the long "sell" transaction as Close, Long during the import process. Your profit or loss on the trade is the difference between what you sold the stock for, minus what you bought it for - see Concept # 1.

 

 

When you short a stock, you sell the stock (with the hope that it will go down in value) and plan to buy the stock back at a profit in the future. As your sale ("sell") transaction is executed before the purchase ("buy to cover short") transaction, TradeLog will record the initial "sell" transaction as Open, Short and subsequent "buy to cover" as Close, Short during the import process. Once again, your profit or loss on the trade is the difference between what you sold the stock for minus what you bought it for.

 

In reality, it does not matter if you buy first and then sell, or sell first and then buy, your profit or loss is always what you sold the stock for minus what you bought it for. If you sell the stock at a lower price than what you bought it for, you have a loss.