The Hidden Costs of Options Trading That Most Beginners Overlook

There is a lot of hype around options trading, and some of it is valid! But some of it is iffy—like if you’ve heard that “Options trading lets you control hundreds of shares for just pennies!” And while that’s technically true, it’s kinda like saying, “You can buy a really nice car for $500!” but you forget to factor in the insurance, any maintenance, and if you get a speeding ticket. A lot of beginners get into options because they’re lured by the promise of leveraged gains, only to realize that their profits vanish under the hidden fees, taxes, and time-sensitive risks.

Here is the sobering and unvarnished truth: Most options traders lose money. An SEC study found that 70% of retail options traders end up in the red. But guess what? A lot of those losses aren’t due to a trader’s bad predictions! They’re caused by the overlooked costs that drain accounts.

We aren’t here to dissuade or scare you off from options trading—quite the opposite! We want to empower you so that you can see the bigger picture. We will go over every single cost—from the upfront premiums to the invisible taxes—that determines if you’ll be a profitable trader or just another cautionary tale.

The Obvious Costs That Traders Consider

Okay, to start with, when most traders think about costs, they tend to picture the upfront price of an option or the commissions charged by their broker. But here’s the rub: even these “obvious” expenses are usually misunderstood or plain underestimated. Premiums, for instance, aren’t just a one-time fee—they’re a recurring drain on your account if you’re consistently buying low-probability contracts. Brokerage fees, while yes seemingly small per trade, can quietly devour your profits over hundreds of transactions. And exercise fees? They’re the unexpected toll roads on a road trip that you thought was going to be a free ride. Below, we’ll explain why these costs aren’t as straightforward as they seem and how they can compound in ways that catch beginners off guard.

Premiums

Premiums are the price that you pay to enter an options contract. For example, buying a $5.00 call on Amazon (AMZN) costs $500 upfront ($5.00 × 100 shares). But unlike stocks, premiums are non-refundable, so even if the trade fails, you lose the whole premium—like buying a ticket to a Broadway show and skipping it.

Why does this hurt beginners? Because new traders chase “cheap” out-of-the-money (OTM) options (e.g., a $1.00 call on Tesla) and these have low strike prices but even lower odds of profitability.

Buying 10 contracts of a $1.00 OTM call costs $100. If the stock doesn’t move, you lose $100. Repeat this weekly? You’re down $5,200/year!

You can use probability calculators (e.g., Options Profit Calculator) to estimate an option’s chance of expiring in-the-money (ITM) and stay away from OTM options with <30% probability.

Brokerage Fees & Commissions

Most brokers offer commission-free stock trading, but still charge fees for options! Even supposedly “commission-free” platforms like Robinhood still charge for options:  

– Fidelity: $0.65 per contract  
– TD Ameritrade: $0.65 per contract + $6.95 base fee per trade

It’s known as a “Hidden Trap,” and here is an example of one: 

Buying 10 contracts of a $2.00 call:  

– Premium: $2.00 × 10 × 100 = $2,000  
– Fees: 10 × $0.65 = $6.50  
– Breakeven price: $2.00 + ($6.50 / 10) = $2.065  
– If the option closes at $2.06, you lose $5.

Exercise and Assignment Fees

If you exercise a call option (buying the shares) or get assigned on a put (selling the shares), brokers charge fees ranging from $5 to $25. Example: You sell a cash-secured put and get assigned 100 shares of stock. Your broker charges a $15 assignment fee. If your profit on the trade was $50, that fee eats 30% of your gains. 

Below is an example:

– Selling a cash-secured put on Apple (AAPL) and getting assigned 100 shares.  
– Profit: $50 | Assignment Fee: $15 → 30% of gains erased.

How can you avoid this? By closing positions early instead of exercising!

Hidden Costs That Can Hurt Your Profits

Hidden costs are akin to planning a road trip and budgeting for gas, only to realize halfway through your getaway that all of the tolls, parking fees, and detours have doubled your expenses. That’s how it works in options trading, too! The premiums and commissions get your attention upfront, but factors like bid-ask spreads, slippage, time decay, and volatility shifts are lurking and operating in the shadows—and they are eroding profits even when you think your trades are successful.

The costs are especially dangerous because they don’t even appear on your brokerage statement—they’re built into the mechanics of how options are priced and traded. Want to know what all of these silent profit-killers are and how you can minimize their impact on your gains? Keep reading, and we’ll tell you how!

1. Bid-Ask Spreads: The Silent Killer of Profits

The bid-ask spread is the difference between what buyers bid and sellers ask. Here’s an example of one:

• Bid: $1.50 | Ask: $1.70 → Spread = $0.20
• Buying at $1.70 and selling at $1.50 = $0.20 loss per contract instantly.

And what’s the real-world impact of bid-ask spreads? This:

• Low-Liquidity Options (e.g., penny stocks): Spreads can be 50% of the option’s price. A $0.40 option with a $0.20 spread requires a 50% gain to break even.
• High-Liquidity Options (e.g., SPY): Spreads as tight as $0.01.

So, if a trader buys 20 contracts of a biotech stock option with a $0.30 spread, there is an immediate loss. What does the loss amount to? Let’s do the math: 20 × $0.30 = $600.

If you want to avoid this cost, you should practice the following:

• Trade high-volume options (SPY, AAPL).
• Use limit orders.

2. Slippage: Getting a Worse Price Than Expected

Slippage is when your order fills at a price worse than you intended, and it’s pretty common in fast-moving markets. While it’s usually associated with market orders during volatile events (like earnings or Fed announcements), even limit orders aren’t immune in extreme conditions. Why does slippage matter, how does it impact options traders, and are there actionable ways to minimize it?

The following are a few examples of slippage at work:

Earnings Reports

– Scenario: You place a market order to buy 10 NVIDIA (NVDA) $600 calls right before earnings.  
– Expected Price: $8.00 per contract → Total Cost: $8,000.  
– Actual Fill: $8.50 due to sudden IV spike → Total Cost: $8,500.  
– Loss: $500 before the trade even starts.

Fed Rate Decisions

– Scenario: You sell SPY puts ahead of a Fed announcement.  
– Expected Fill: $2.00 per contract → Premium Received: $2,000 (for 10 contracts).  
– Actual Fill: $1.80 due to panic selling → Premium Received: $1,800.  
– Loss: $200 in potential income.

Meme Stock Mania

– Scenario: Buying GameStop (GME) calls during a Reddit-fueled rally.  
– Expected Price: $3.00 → Actual Fill: $4.50 due to frenzied buying.  
– Result: You overpay by 50%, needing a 100% move just to break even.

How to Decrease Slippage

• Use Limit Orders, Not Market Orders:  A limit order sets your maximum buy price or minimum sell price. Example: “Buy 10 TSLA $200 calls at $5.00 or lower.”
• Tradeoff: Your order might not fill, but you avoid overpaying.
• Avoid Trading During High-Impact Events: Steer clear of earnings, Fed meetings, or CPI reports unless you’re intentionally trading volatility.
• Stick to Liquid Options: Focus on high-volume ETFs (SPY, QQQ) or mega-cap stocks (AAPL, AMZN) where bid-ask spreads are tight. Check average daily volume (>1,000 contracts) and open interest (>500) before trading.
• Tiered Order Sizes: Break large orders into smaller chunks to avoid “moving the market.” Example: Buy 5 contracts at $5.00, then 5 more at $4.95 if the price dips.
• Monitor Market Depth: Use Level 2 data (available on platforms like Thinkorswim) to see the order book and gauge liquidity.

3. Time Decay (Theta): The Cost of Holding Options Too Long

Time decay, aka Theta, is another silent killer of options traders. It’s the rate at which an option loses value as it approaches expiration, and it’s one of the most misunderstood—and underestimated—concepts for beginners. Next up, we look at why it’s so dangerous and show how it can erode profits even when the underlying stock moves in your favor.

What Is Time Decay?

Theta measures how much an option’s price decreases as time passes, and it’s expressed as a negative number (e.g., -0.05), meaning the option loses $0.05 per day. Time decay accelerates as expiration nears, especially in the final 30 days.

Here’s an example of time decay:

– A 60-day SPY call option priced at $5.00 might lose $0.10/day initially.
– With 30 days left, Theta increases to -$0.20/day.
– In the final week, it could lose $0.50/day or more.

Why Beginners Underestimate Theta

• Focus on Direction, Not Time: New traders usually fixate on predicting stock movements—they ignore the ticking clock. If you buy a $10 call on Apple (AAPL) 60 days out, expecting a rally. Even if AAPL rises slightly, Theta could erase all of your gains.
• Overconfidence in Long-Dated Options: Beginners just assume longer expirations (e.g., 6–12 months) are safer because Theta is lower. But the reality is this: Long-dated options are expensive, and Theta still eats away at value over time.
• Ignoring Acceleration Near Expiration: Theta isn’t linear. It accelerates exponentially in the final weeks, and that catches traders off guard.

How Time Decay Eats Away at Option Value

• Scenario: You buy a $5.00 call on Tesla (TSLA) with 30 days to expiration.
• Theta: -$0.20/day. TSLA stays flat for 10 days.
• Result: The option loses $0.20/day × 10 days = $2.00. New Price: $3.00 → A 40% loss despite no change in the stock price.

How to Mitigate Theta Decay

• Sell Options, Don’t Buy Them: As a seller, you collect Theta—sell weekly covered calls or cash-secured puts.
• Don’t Hold Options For Too Long: Close positions 7–14 days before expiration to elude accelerated decay.
• Use Spreads to Decrease Theta Exposure: Sell a $5.00 call and buy a $7.00 call. Theta decay on the sold call offsets the bought call.

Time decay is relentless. Even if you’re right about the stock’s direction, Theta can turn a winning trade into a loser.

4. Implied Volatility (IV) Crush: Losing Money Even When You’re Right

Implied volatility (IV) is the market’s forecast of a stock’s future volatility, and it’s a critical driver of option prices. But here’s the rub, and it’s a big one: IV can collapse overnight, and it will crush option values even if the stock moves in your favor. This phenomenon, which is known as IV crush, is a super common trap for beginners!

What Is Implied Volatility?

IV reflects how much the market expects a stock to swing.

• High IV = Expensive options (premiums are inflated).
• Low IV = Cheap options (premiums are deflated).

An example: 

– Before earnings, Tesla (TSLA) options might have an IV of 80%.
– Post-earnings, IV drops to 40%, slashing option prices.

Why IV Crush Happens

• Earnings Reports: IV spikes ahead of earnings due to uncertainty. Post-earnings, uncertainty resolves, and IV collapses.
• News Events: Fed meetings, FDA approvals, or geopolitical events can cause IV spikes.
• Once the event passes, IV reverts to normal levels.
• Market Calm: During periods of low volatility (e.g., summer months), IV tends to drop across the board.

How IV Crush Erodes Profits

• Scenario: You buy a $10 straddle (simultaneous call and put) on Amazon (AMZN) ahead of earnings.
• Pre-Earnings: IV = 80%. Straddle Price = $20.
• Post-Earnings: AMZN rises 5%, but IV drops to 40%. Straddle Price = $8.
• Result: You lose $12 per contract despite correctly predicting the stock’s direction.

IV crush can turn a “winning” trade into a loser if you don’t account for volatility changes.

Why Beginners Fail to Account for IV Changes

• Focusing Only on Price Movement: New traders tend to ignore IV—they assume stock direction is all the only thing that matters.
• Overpaying for High IV: Beginners buy options when IV is elevated (e.g., before earnings), paying inflated premiums.
• Underestimating IV Crush: They assume IV will stay high, not realizing just how fast it can bottom out.

How to Avoid IV Crush

• Sell Options During High IV: Sell strangles or iron condors before earnings to capitalize on inflated premiums.
• Don’t Buy Options Before Binary Events: Steer well clear of buying calls/puts ahead of earnings, Fed meetings, or FDA decisions.
• Monitor IV Percentile: Use tools like Thinkorswim or TradingView to check if IV is in the top 20% of its historical range.
• Use Volatility-Based Strategies: Sell VIX calls when the VIX > 30 (panic) and buy when VIX < 15 (complacency).

Hidden Regulatory and Exchange Fees

If you’ve ever looked over your brokerage statement and wondered, “What the heck is this $0.03 fee for??” Welcome! It’s nice to see you and to join the club. Regulatory and exchange fees are the financial equivalent of death by a thousand papercuts. Governments and exchanges take their cut on every single trade, and it’s usually in ways that feel super trivial—that is, until you’re trading dozens of contracts weekly.

Sure, a $0.01-per-contract fee looks harmless enough, but over a year of active trading, it could cost you more than a premium brokerage subscription. What are these fees, who’s charging them, and how can you calculate their long-term impact on your bottom line? Read on to find out!

SEC Fee

If you’re selling an option, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) takes a 0.0008% cut of the total sale price. That’s $0.80 per $100,000 sold or $8 for every $1 million. A few cents per trade doesn’t seem like a lot of scratch, but over time, it’s another cost that is cutting into your profits.

FINRA TAF

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) also takes a small cut from every sale. This Trading Activity Fee (TAF) is $0.001 per share, but the maximum per trade is $7.27. If you’re trading large volumes or making frequent trades, these charges can definitely sneak up on you.

Exchange Fees

Every options exchange charges its own fee per contract, and those fees vary. If you’re trading on the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), Nasdaq, NYSE Arca, or another platform, the exchange fee is something that you need to factor into your total trading cost.

The fees usually range from $0.03 to $0.65 per contract, and again, that doesn’t look like a lot, but it can and does add up quickly for high-volume traders. Some brokers include these fees in their commission structure, and others charge them separately—so you should always know your broker’s fee breakdown.

How These Fees Add Up

To see just how quickly the “small” fees can eat into profits, here’s an illustration! Let’s say you’re an active trader who sells 50 contracts per trade 5 times a week. That’s 250 contracts per week or 1,000 contracts per month.

Now, we apply the fees:

• SEC Fee: If each contract sells for $2,000, that’s a total sale of $500,000 per week or $2 million per month. The SEC fee at 0.0008% means you’re paying $16 per month just in SEC transaction fees.
• FINRA TAF: At $0.001 per contract, you’re paying $1 per trade or $5 per week—that’s $20 per month (assuming that you don’t hit the cap).
• Exchange Fees: If the exchange charges $0.30 per contract, that’s $75 per week or $300 per month.

Total extra costs per month? Around $336—and that’s before adding in commission, spread costs, or platform fees.

For traders who scale up their volume, the costs will multiply fast. And even though there are mere pennies at first, they add up and eat into your margins if you’re not keeping a close eye on them.

Regulatory and exchange fees are just a part of trading, but understanding where your money is going helps you adjust your strategy and protect your profits.

The Cost of Holding vs. Closing Positions

Holding an option until expiration feels like letting a lottery ticket play out—until you realize the lottery charges a fee just for checking the numbers. A lot of beginners fall into the trap of holding positions too long, hoping for a last-minute turnaround, only to get hit with expiration fees or missed opportunities to salvage remaining value.

Meanwhile, closing early can save money but requires timing the market perfectly. And if you’re trading on margin? The costs escalate further, with interest charges and collateral requirements turning small trades into expensive liabilities. The following is how to weigh the trade-offs and avoid the hidden expenses of time and leverage.

Letting Options Expire vs. Closing Early

One of the less obvious costs in options trading comes from deciding whether to let an option expire or close the position early. Most beginner traders think that allowing an option to expire is the cheapest and simplest route, but brokers usually charge hefty expiration or exercise fees—which makes this a really costly assumption.

• Expiration Fees: $5–$25 (e.g., ETRADE charges $25).

Different brokers have their own fee structures, but expiration or exercise fees usually go from $5 to $25 per contract. Some platforms will waive this fee under specific conditions (like auto-exercise for small quantities), but for active traders or those dealing with multiple contracts, this charge can really add up.

Here’s an example: If you hold a $1.00 call option that has dropped in value to $0.05 near expiration. You have two choices:

1. Close the position early by selling it for $5.00 per contract (since one contract represents 100 shares).
2. Let it expire and pay a $25 fee if your broker charges an expiration fee.

In this case, closing the position early saves you $20 per contract, which makes a huge difference if you’re trading in volume.

For traders handling multiple contracts per month, these fees can drain profits. Suppose you frequently hold 10 contracts per trade and let them expire instead of closing early. That’s a $250 fee per expiration versus a $50 profit if closed at $0.05 per contract—a difference of $300 per trade. Multiply that over several trades, and you’re losing thousands in unnecessary fees!

Why Closing Early Can Be Smarter

If you are tempted to let an option expire worthless, allow us to enlighten you; it’s usually cheaper to close early when the contract still has some value. Even if the contract is near worthless (e.g., trading at $0.01 to $0.05), selling it before expiration will save you from unnecessary fees, and this helps decrease trading costs and protects your bottom line.

Margin Costs for Selling Options

Selling options—especially selling naked puts— require a large margin balance. If you don’t have enough cash to cover the trade, your broker will require you to borrow funds on margin, which comes with interest charges that can eat into your profits.

An example? We got you. Selling Naked Puts on AMZN: Say you decide to sell a naked put on Amazon (AMZN) at a strike price of $150. Since each options contract represents 100 shares, that means you’re taking on a potential obligation to buy 100 shares of AMZN for $150 each—or $15,000 total.

Margin Requirement:

• Brokers usually require traders selling naked puts to have enough cash or margin in their account to cover potential losses.
• For this AMZN trade, the broker might impose a $15,000 margin requirement, meaning that you have to have at least that much cash or margin buying power available.

If you don’t have $15,000 in cash, you’ll need to borrow on margin to meet the requirement. If we assume that you only have $7,500 available and need to borrow the remaining $7,500 from your broker at an interest rate of 8% APR (a common rate for margin accounts).

Here’s the Interest Calculation:

• Borrowed amount: $7,500
• Interest rate: 8% annually
• Yearly interest: $7,500 × 8% = $600
• Monthly interest: $50 per month

If the trade takes three months to play out, that’s $150 in interest costs, which obviously cuts into any profit you make.

The Hidden Cost of Holding a Margined Position

The traders who only look at the premium collected when selling an option—say, earning $300 in premium for selling the AMZN put—without considering that $150 of that might go toward margin interest if the trade is held for three months are effectively cutting their profits in half.

For short-term trades, margin borrowing might not be a big concern, but for longer trades, especially when rolling options forward, the interest expense can snowball.

How to Manage Margin Costs

• Use cash-secured puts instead of naked puts to avoid borrowing costs.
• Close out or roll the trade before interest charges get too high.
• Choose lower-margin brokers with competitive rates if you plan to trade on margin regularly.

Tax Implications: The Cost Most Traders Forget

Taxes are the ultimate delayed cost—a bill that arrives months after you’ve closed a trade, and it usually comes with some unpleasant surprises. Did you know that short-term gains are taxed nearly twice as heavily as long-term gains in the U.S.? Or that the IRS can disallow losses if you repurchase a similar option too quickly? A lot of traders treat taxes as an afterthought, only to be hit with sticker shock during tax season. Next up, we walk you through the nuances of option taxation, from the 1256 contract rule to wash sales, so that you can keep more of your hard-earned profits!

Taxes on options trading depend on how long you hold your position before selling. The IRS treats options as capital assets, meaning your profits fall under capital gains tax rules.

• Short-term capital gains (holding period <1 year) → Taxed as ordinary income, up to 37%
• Long-term capital gains (holding period >1 year) → Taxed at a lower rate, up to 20%

Why It Matters for Options Traders

Since most traders buy and sell options within a few weeks or months, their gains usually fall under short-term capital gains—which can be significantly higher than long-term tax rates. If you are a regular trader, a big chunk of your profits could end up going to taxes.

• If you make $50,000 in short-term option profits and you’re in the highest tax bracket (37%), you could owe $18,500 in taxes.
• If those same profits were taxed at the long-term capital gains rate (20%), your tax bill would be only $10,000.

The takeaway? Holding a position longer than a year can cut your tax bill nearly in half—but for most option traders, this isn’t always the most practical route.

The 1256 Contract Rule

Most stock options are taxed as regular capital gains under the short-term/long-term rules above. However, certain index options—like SPX, NDX, and RUT—fall under the 1256 contract tax treatment, which offers a way more favorable split:

• 60% of the gains are taxed as long-term capital gains (max 20%)
• 40% are taxed as short-term capital gains (max 37%)

Example: SPX Index Options vs. Regular Stock Options

If you trade SPX options and make $10,000 in profit:

– Under 1256 contract rules, $6,000 (60%) is taxed at the long-term rate (20%) → $1,200 tax owed
– $4,000 (40%) is taxed at the short-term rate (37%) → $1,480 tax owed
– Total tax owed = $2,680

Now, compare that to regular stock options (where 100% is short-term):

– $10,000 taxed at 37% = $3,700 tax owed

By trading SPX instead of regular stock options, you save $1,020 in taxes on the same $10,000 profit.

Why Does This Matter?

If you’re an active trader dealing in SPX, NDX, or RUT index options, the 1256 contract tax treatment helps reduce your tax burden—something a lot of traders don’t realize when they are deciding between stock and index options.

Wash Sale Rule

The Wash Sale Rule is the IRS’s way of stopping traders from harvesting tax losses while maintaining basically the same position.

Here’s How It Works:

• If you sell an option at a loss and repurchase a “substantially identical” option within 30 days, the IRS disallows your loss deduction.
• Instead of being able to use that loss to offset your gains, the disallowed loss is added to the cost basis of the new option, meaning you can’t deduct it immediately.

Example of a Wash Sale in Options Trading:

– If you buy AAPL $180 calls for $5.00 per contract, but the trade goes south, and you sell at $3.00 per contract, taking a $200 loss per contract.
– A week later, you buy the same AAPL $180 calls again for $4.50 per contract. Since this new purchase happened within 30 days, the IRS disallows your $200 loss and instead adds it to your cost basis of the new options.
– Your new cost basis isn’t $4.50 per contract anymore—it’s $6.50 per contract ($4.50 + $2.00 from the previous loss).

Why the Wash Sale Rule Matters for Options Traders

• The rule applies to calls, puts, and even different expiration dates if they’re deemed “substantially identical.”
• Wash sales can make tax-loss harvesting iffy, especially for active traders rolling contracts forward or re-entering similar trades within a short period of time.
• If you trade regularly, you could get hit with a series of disallowed losses, which will make your tax situation much more complicated than you expected.

To avoid wash sales, traders do one of the following things:

1. Wait at least 30 days before buying back the same option.
2. Buy a slightly different contract (e.g., different strike price or expiration date) to avoid being flagged as “substantially identical.”

For traders who are dealing with multiple positions, tax software or a CPA can help to track wash sales so that there aren’t any nasty shocks at tax time!

Risk Management Costs: Paying for Protection

Risk management is like insurance: it’s a necessity, but it’s never free. Hedging with protective puts or spreads limits your downside, but it also eats into possible gains. Opportunity cost—the money you could’ve made elsewhere—is another invisible tax on your capital. And let’s not forget the psychological toll: the stress of managing complex positions can lead to impulsive decisions, like closing a trade too early or doubling down on a losing bet. For the grand finale, we’ll look at how “playing it safe” comes with its own costs and how to balance protection with profitability.  

Opportunity Cost

Money that is tied up in options trades isn’t working elsewhere. Unlike dividend-paying stocks or ETFs, options don’t generate passive income while you wait. If your capital is locked in an options position for weeks or months, you could be missing out on other profitable investments.

Hedging Costs

Hedging with protective puts or spreads helps limit risk, but it comes at a price. The cost of these strategies decreases possible gains, and if the hedge isn’t needed, you’ve spent money on protection that you didn’t use. Yes, risk management is really important, but over-hedging can weigh down your returns.

Opportunity Cost – Capital Tied Up in Options Trades

Once your capital is committed to an options trade, it’s off the table for other opportunities. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stock on the rise, an ETF with steady growth, or a new investment trend, the funds tied up in options could have been used elsewhere for potentially better returns.

Psychological Costs

Options trading isn’t all about the numbers—it’s a mental game, too! Watching prices swing, dealing with time decay, and managing multiple positions can be mentally exhausting. The stress of trying to time the market or recover losses can push traders into emotional decision-making, and that can cause them to make costly mistakes like panic selling or holding on too long.

Conclusion: Hidden Costs Are Manageable, But Only If You Know Where to Look

Options trading is like an iceberg—the costs you see are just the tip. But now that you’ve got the full map, you can steer around the unsuspecting costs that tend to trip up most beginners. Track every fee, respect time decay, and never let taxes catch you off guard—you don’t want to be ambushed at the end of the year! Start out small, prioritize your education, and remember this: the goal isn’t to avoid costs entirely (that’s impossible) but to decrease their bite.

Want to take the next step? You can check out all of our beginner-friendly (and free!) guides at OptionsTrading.org to master the strategies that prioritize net profitability—because in options, what you don’t know can hurt you.