when discussing business the near term may refer to an active or soon to be active period of time the current business quarter could be referred to as the near term since everything that happens in that quarter will occur over the next three months 
if a business is getting ready to launch a new product or marketing campaign within the next few months that would also be a near term initiative even though it may have been in the works for months or years near term in trading exampleconsider the following hypothetical scenario it s the start of april and a trader is considering taking a trade in apple aapl in anticipation of its earnings release on april 28 the trader is bullish and wants to have a long position in advance of the earnings release which they believe will be favorable and push the stock price up this trader will hold the position for one week after the earnings release if the news is positive and the stock rises if the news isn t positive and the stock drops on or after the earnings release the trader will get out immediately and take whatever loss or profit they have the trader will wait for an entry point that they like prior to the april 28 earnings release they expect that they should get into the long position by mid april this means that the trade will only last two to three weeks this makes it a near term trade since the earnings release or event the trader is waiting for is also in the near term 