How a trade makes money
Strip away the jargon and every trade is the same shape: you take a position, the price moves, you close it. Profit is the gap between where you got in and where you got out. This page covers the one idea underneath that, the two directions you can bet, and how market, limit, and stop orders turn a move into money. Helm never tells you what to trade — it explains the mechanics so your decisions are informed ones.
Profit is a gap, times size
You don't profit from being “right.” You profit from the distance between your entry and your exit, multiplied by how many contracts you held. That's the whole engine — order types and direction are just how you open and close that gap.
On a long you want exit > entry. On a short you flip it — you sold first, so profit is (entry − exit). The point value is set by the contract (e.g. each full point on an MNQ micro is worth $2), so a bigger move or more contracts both scale the same gap. That second lever is also how a small adverse move becomes a large loss — size cuts both ways.
The two ways to bet
Before any order, you pick a direction. In futures the two are symmetric — selling to open is as routine as buying, so you can profit whether you expect price to rise or fall. What changes is the order of the two trades.
Three ways in and out
An order is just how you open or close the gap. No order makes money on its own — each one trades a different mix of certainty and price. These are the same three the Placing orders guide maps; here the focus is how each one earns.
A market order takes the best price on offer immediately — the Ask if you're buying. It doesn't earn anything by itself; what it buys you is a known entry, right now. You profit from what the position does after the fill, so a market order is the tool when being in the trade matters more than shaving a tick off the price.
You are in the trade the instant you decide — no waiting, no missed move.
You pay the spread and can slip a tick or two in a fast market. No price control.
A limit fills only at your price or better. A buy limit rests below the market, so every tick lower you fill is a tick of extra profit (or a tick less risk) baked in before the trade even moves. The same order flipped above your entry becomes a take-profit: it sells only at your target or higher, locking the gain the moment price reaches it.
You choose the price. A better fill is profit captured before the move happens.
No fill is guaranteed. Price can run without you if it never trades back to your limit.
A stop sits dormant until price reaches a trigger, then turns into a market order. It has two profit-side jobs. As an entry (a buy stop above the market) it only fires if price breaks out in your favour — you pay up to join a move the market has confirmed, which is how an ORB breakout is taken. As an exit (a sell stop below a long) it caps a loss, and trailed upward behind a winner it locks in profit you've already earned.
You only enter on confirmation, and a trailing stop banks profit without you watching every tick.
Breakouts can be false — you can be triggered in right before price reverses, or stopped out on noise.
Every one of these maps to Helm's Practice calc: Entry is your fill, Stop is the protective sell-stop, and Target is the take-profit limit. Type them in and the gap, your risk, R, and P&L are computed for you — so you can rehearse the maths before risking a cent. Helm reads your numbers and coaches; it never places the order.
This page is educational and is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Trading futures involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for everyone. Past performance and practice results do not predict future results. Helm is a read-only coaching and journaling tool — it never executes trades and never tells you what to buy or sell. Every decision is yours.