Although options might sound like scary and risky investments, they can be used to protect your investments in stock and limit your downside. Your first step should be learning the vocabulary of options. Simply speaking, there are calls and puts. The seller of a call is paid for agreeing to sell those 100 shares of stock.
Puts are just the opposite.
They give their owners the right to sell 100 shares of stock at a certain price on a certain date. Sellers of puts are also paid, but in this case they are paid for agreeing to buy those shares. Options can be extremely speculative or extremely conservative. You're nervous about the stock market, and you want to make sure you don't suffer a great loss. If for some reason you want to keep the shares, you can also sell the put option for a profit to someone else.