Chipotle stock dropped 12% on the week. 

The trigger wasn't earnings or the Fed. It was a batch of jalapenos linked to a salmonella outbreak.

If you were long CMG calls heading into Friday, nothing on the chart was going to warn you about a food-safety headline. It hit the wire and the stock tanked.

And if you had a stop-loss under the position, it just sat there like a participation trophy while your calls cratered. 

A stop is only an instruction to sell at the next available price once your level trades. 

When the stock gaps past that level on news, the fill happens wherever the market opens, not where you set it. The exact moment you needed protection is the moment it wasn't there.

The only thing that matters is what your position looked like when the news broke, not what you knew going in.

There are five checks I run before every options trade. 

The first one is the Floor. Before you enter, you have to know your exact max loss in dollars, down to the penny. When a salmonella headline hits or an earnings print misses, that number doesn't change.

I put the five checks into a short report. Free:

→ Grab The 60-Second Options Checklist

Print it and keep it near your platform. Run through it before every trade.

Nobody controls the news, but the Floor is one number that's always yours to set.

To your success,

Don Kaufman

P.S. Grab it before Monday's open so you can run the checks on your next trade. The report also walks through three real Pocket trades, including one that went against me.