Master every decision after your options order fills — from stop‑losses to profit‑taking to rolling positions.
Based on: You Placed Your Options Trade. Now What? - 10/29/26 | In The Money | Fidelity Investments by Fidelity Investments
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You placed the trade. Now your stomach is doing something weird. You keep refreshing the screen, watching the number tick up and down, wondering if you should do something — but you have no idea what. Sound familiar? You are not alone, and this is exactly the problem that most options education completely ignores.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: getting into an options trade is the easy part. The real money — and the real losses — happen in what you do after the order fills. Do you hold? Do you cut? Do you roll? Do you take profits now or wait? Every minute you spend paralyzed by indecision is a minute the market is making the decision for you.
Imagine instead having a clear, calm framework for every scenario. Your trade is down 50% — you know exactly what to ask yourself and what to do next. Your position just doubled — you have a plan for locking in gains while keeping some upside exposure. You are considering a roll — you understand exactly what that means and whether it actually makes sense for your outlook. That kind of clarity is what separates traders who survive from those who blow up accounts chasing losses or giving back hard-earned gains.
This checklist is built directly from a deep-dive session by Fidelity Investments' own Trading Strategy Desk experts Jim Armstrong and Andrew McGowin — seasoned options educators who have spent years coaching real traders through exactly these situations. Andrew has been in the weeds of options trading for many years and brings the kind of practical, experience-tested wisdom you cannot get from a textbook. They walked through real trade examples — ANET, BKNG, GLD — showing exactly how experienced traders handled stop-losses, profit-taking, and rolling in live market conditions.
This PDF checklist translates every actionable insight from that session into a clean, step-by-step reference you can keep open while you trade. No fluff, no vague advice — just the specific questions to ask, the thresholds to consider, and the decision frameworks that professional options traders actually use.
Download it, print it, and use it the next time your trade is live and your palms are sweating. You will finally know what to do.
Every checklist item comes with actionable notes to guide you — things like "Don't forget to do this before you start," "Avoid this common mistake," or "Set a reminder for 30 days out." Nothing vague, just clear next steps.
+ 17 more action items inside...
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