Pandas: if row in column A contains “x”, write “y” to row in column B

Your code would error as you creating the Dataframe incorrectly, just create a single column A then add B based on A:

import pandas as pd
df = pd.DataFrame(["BULL","BEAR","BULL"], columns=['A'])
df["B"] = ["Long" if ele  == "BULL" else "Short" for ele in df["A"]]

print(df)

    A      B
0  BULL   Long
1  BEAR  Short
2  BULL   Long

Or do you logic with the data before you create the dataframe:

import pandas as pd
data = ["BULL","BEAR","BULL"]
data2 = ["Long" if ele  == "BULL" else "Short" for ele in data]
df = pd.DataFrame(list(zip(data, data2)), columns=['A','B'])

print(df)
      A      B
 0  BULL   Long
 1  BEAR  Short
 2  BULL   Long

For your edit:

df = pd.DataFrame([['BULL APPLE X5',''],['BEAR APPLE X5',''],['BULL APPLE X5','']], columns=['A','B'])

df["B"] = df["A"].map(lambda x: "Long" if "BULL" in x else "Short" if "BEAR" in x else "")

print(df)

            A      B
0  BULL APPLE X5   Long
1  BEAR APPLE X5  Short
2  BULL APPLE X5   Long

Or just add the column after:

df = pd.DataFrame(['BULL APPLE X5','BEAR APPLE X5','BLL APPLE X5'], columns=['A'])

df["B"] = df["A"].map(lambda x: "Long" if "BULL" in x else "Short" if "BEAR" in x else "")

print(df)

Or using contains:

df = pd.DataFrame([['BULL APPLE X5',''],['BEAR APPLE X5',''],['BULL APPLE X5','']], columns=['A','B'])


df["B"][df['A'].str.contains("BULL")] = "Long"
df["B"][df['A'].str.contains("BEAR")] = "Short"

print(df)
0  BULL APPLE X5   Long
1  BEAR APPLE X5  Short
2  BULL APPLE X5   Long