Don’t Be A D*Ck For A Tick

Just curious… Do you often talk to yourself? I ask because I'm always talking to myself. They say smart people do talk to themselves more often, but who knows because there's no one to verify it. (Queue the pun music) Today, I found myself doing a tribal chant around my Macbook saying "don't be a dick for a tick". Might be a little odd if you haven't heard of the saying before, but it's an old floor trader saying. It's a reminder that you could be too greedy or stubborn. A tick is a minimum price quote up or down for a futures contract. For instance, The E-mini S&P 500 tick size is .25, or $12.50 per tick. There are four ticks per 1 point move. So if you're one tick away from your exit area, and the market hasn't filled you yet, and you've been at that level for a while, maybe you should come to where the market is it. Here's why I was reminding myself that today. I was reviewing positions I had in the Silver ETF (SLV), which was a short strangle that I entered 18 days ago. The position came in nicely last week but didn't hit the standard profit target I have for each trade. I believe it was a few pennies away from closing out. In the morning I noticed it was 1 penny from filling where my GTC order has been at since entry. When I noticed that it didn't fill yet during the afternoon, that is when I reminded myself "Josh, don't be a dick for a tick". I cancelled the GTC order and moved it up 1 penny, and about a minute later the order was filled. While it didn't hit my exact 50% target, I have for each trade, which I teach in Fearless Investing With Options book it did generate 49% in 18 days. When you have profits that quickly and don't manage it, that is when you start to have a diminishing return on risk and start to risk more than it's worth. This is also where many could see a winning trades turn into a losing one. It's better to take off the risk and then deploy the capital into a new position instead of trying to squeeze every last penny. That is what most investors and traders try to do and why they lose money. If you want to learn the ways on how to be a successful with trading options to avoid most common mistakes most make that causes them to go down in flames, then you're going to want to purchase and read this book today: http://www.FearlessInvestingWithOptions.com To your wealth, freedom and options! Joshua Belanger