The biggest fear when trading contracts isn’t reading the direction wrong—it’s reading it right and still dying halfway through.

A few days ago, the market was snapping up and down like needles. My friend called me at 3 a.m., saying his position had been liquidated. He had clearly not misread the trend—he just couldn’t hold on through that mid-route needle.

After we hung up, I thought about it: this kind of thing is all too common. You stare at the chart, you study, you calculate your position—yet one needle in the middle wipes out all your effort.