Open Position
Account & Order Concepts
An open position is an active trade that has been entered but not yet closed, still exposed to market movement and floating profit or loss.
What is an open position?
An open position is any trade that has been entered into the market and has not yet been closed. From the moment a market order fills or a pending order triggers, that trade is “open” and remains exposed to price movement — gaining or losing value — until the trader closes it manually, a take-profit or stop-loss triggers automatically, or (in rarer cases) a broker forces a stop-out due to insufficient margin.
Every open position is either a long position, profiting if the price rises, or a short position, profiting if the price falls.
A worked example
Suppose you open a long position on 1 mini lot of GBP/USD at 1.2700. From that instant, this trade is an open position: its value fluctuates in real time with every tick of GBP/USD, generating a running floating profit or loss that you can watch on your platform. If GBP/USD rises to 1.2750, the position shows a floating profit; if it drops to 1.2650, it shows a floating loss. Either way, nothing is final — the result only becomes locked in as realized profit or loss once you close the position.
Why open positions matter
The number and size of open positions a trader holds directly determines used margin and, through it, free margin and overall account risk. Holding several open positions at once means their combined floating losses (or gains) all count toward account equity simultaneously — which is why disciplined traders track total open exposure, not just each trade individually, as part of sound risk management. Checking your open positions regularly is a basic habit: it’s the list of everything currently putting your capital at risk in the live market.
Open positions remain exposed to market risk until closed, and losses can accumulate quickly with leverage. This article is educational and not financial advice.