One day, a novice trader opened a forex trading account with a broker and decided to try his luck at trading. He read a few articles and watched a few videos on forex trading and thought he understood the basics. He opened a long position on EUR/USD and went to bed, confident that he would wake up to a tidy profit.
The next morning, he woke up to find that his account balance had been wiped out. Puzzled, he checked his trade and saw that he had accidentally opened a short position instead of a long position. He had bet against the euro instead of for it.
Feeling embarrassed, he contacted the broker's support team and explained his mistake. The support team member, trying to be helpful, asked him how he had made such a basic error. The trader replied:
- "Well, I thought 'short' meant 'short-term' and 'long' meant 'long-term.'"
