Flat

"Flat" describes a trader who currently holds no position in a market — no shares owned, nothing sold short, no exposure to whether the price goes up or down. If you buy 100 shares and then sell all 100, you are flat again: you've closed the loop and have zero risk in that name.

The word gets used in a few related but distinct ways. Most often it refers to this state of being out of the market entirely, as in "I closed my last trade, I'm flat now." It can also describe a position whose net exposure is close to zero even though you technically hold something — for example, if you're long 100 shares of one stock and short 100 shares of a very similar stock, the combined position might be called flat because gains in one largely offset losses in the other. Separately, "flat" can describe price action itself: a stock trading in a narrow, sideways range with little net movement over a session is said to be "trading flat."

The nuance that trips people up is that "flat" always needs context to know which sense is meant — a person, a portfolio, or a chart. A trader can be flat (no position) while watching a stock that is also trading flat (no movement), and those are two separate facts that happen to share a word. Being flat as a trader is not the same as being neutral on direction while still holding a position (that's closer to hedged or delta-neutral) — flat specifically means no position at all.

Flat is also a starting and ending point for most day traders: many begin the day flat, take positions during the session, and aim to end the day flat again, closing everything out before the market closes.