# Strategies

StockHero allows users to trade in both bull and bear markets with long and short strategies. A bot can be configured to trade either the long or short strategy. To trade both directions with the same settings another bot must be used. Advanced traders can implement the long-short strategy by using StockHero's [Strategy Designer](/bot-settings/strategy-designer.md).

### What is a Long strategy

A Long strategy aims to generate a profit by buying a stock at a low price and selling it at a higher price.

![](/files/-M64CYy-trbzL-Wn_yqT)

### What is a Short strategy?

A Short strategy aims to sell a stock first, in anticipation that the price will drop in the future. A profit is made when you buy back the same stock at a lower price.

![](/files/-M64CadJ7zKWmHtxkc0F)

### Borrowed-Short (or Margin-Short)

StockHero allows you to do margin-short as well. This means that you can sell (short) a stock without having to physically own it. The ability to short a stock depends on your broker's list of stocks that you can short. In order to execute a "margin-short" strategy, you need to connect StockHero to an exchange with the "**(Margin)**" text appended to it in the Brokerage API screen. See the image below:

<figure><img src="/files/DlsvUBkISB1OTDwbrFhp" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Differences between a physical-short and a margin-short

<table><thead><tr><th width="318">Features</th><th>Physical Short</th><th>Margin Short</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Need to own the underlying stock</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Fund Allocation Metric</td><td>Number of shares</td><td>USD (No. of shares for certain brokerages. Please check the currency symbol displayed in the Fund Allocation textbox)</td></tr><tr><td>Brokerage account type</td><td>Cash</td><td>Margin</td></tr></tbody></table>

TradeStation (Margin) allows you to execute margin-short while TradeStation (Cash) does not. You can add both brokerages if you would like to run margin-short strategy as well.

{% hint style="info" %}
If you run a Short strategy on a (**Cash**) based brokerage, you will need to own the actual stock in order to execute your Short strategy.
{% endhint %}


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