what is time and tick in trading 
time and tick is a way to determine if a margin call should be issued with this method only open positions are used to calculate a day trade margin call the bottom linea tick is the minimum number in price a security can move on an exchange tick sizes vary by market and investment for example an e mini s p 500 futures contract has a designated tick size of 0 25 gold futures have a tick size of 0 10 and stocks trading above 1 have a minimum tick size of one cent the word tick may also be used to describe the direction of the price of a stock an uptick means the price is rising while a downtick indicates the opposite 