Tick, point, dollar: counting like a futures trader

On futures, price does not move continuously: it advances in ticks, the smallest price increment allowed. On ES, one tick is 0.25 point. Price therefore goes from 7,600.00 to 7,600.25, then 7,600.50, never 7,600.10. Each tick has a fixed dollar value, per contract. Until you think in ticks and dollars instinctively, you do not know what you are risking.

This lesson is pure arithmetic. Yet it is the most important one in the module: almost every beginner account that blows up within a few days does so because the trader did not know, at the moment of entry, how much their stop cost.