In this video, Joe highlights key technical setups in select country ETFs that are showing strength right now. He analyzes monthly and weekly MACD, ADX, and RSI trends that are signaling momentum shifts. Joe also reviews the critical level to watch on the S&P 500 (SPX), while breaking down important patterns in the QQQ, IWM, and Bitcoin. As always, he finishes with analysis on your most-requested stocks, applying his trusted multi-timeframe approach.
The video premiered on April 23, 2025. Click this link to watch on Joe’s dedicated page.
Archived videos from Joe are available at this link. Send symbol requests to stocktalk@stockcharts.com; you can also submit a request in the comments section below the video on YouTube. Symbol Requests can be sent in throughout the week prior to the next show.
When the stock market is turbulent, it makes sense to hedge some of your valuable equity positions. One way to do it is through options.
The adage “Don’t keep all your eggs in one basket” is well-known among investors. While a diversified portfolio reduces your risk, you probably have a handful of favorite stocks that you don’t want to sell. But watching those stocks lose value can be painful.
The good news: There is a way to reduce your losses on those positions.
Hedging With Options
Before diving into the strategies, you need to determine what you want to do with the stocks you want to hold on to. When a market is trending lower, options help protect your investments in the following ways:
Protecting your stocks against losses.
Generating income from declining stock values.
Realizing profits from declining stocks if the stock moves in your favor.
Before proceeding further, look at all your portfolio holdings and determine which stocks you want to hold on to, then determine your hedging objectives.
This article will focus on the strategies you can implement to protect your stocks against losses. You can do this by buying puts, which are similar to an insurance policy. You pay for downside protection to gain unlimited upside potential.
Here’s how it works.
You buy one put contract for 100 shares of an underlying stock. For example, if you own 100 shares of Apple, Inc. (AAPL), you buy one AAPL put contract; if you own 200 shares of AAPL, you could buy 2 put contracts.
You buy a put with a strike price that could generate a profit that you’re comfortable with on your equity position, and a premium (the price of the contract) that you’re willing to pay to protect your position.
If the stock’s price falls below the strike price, you could sell your put contract for a profit. You could also choose to exercise your put contract, i.e., selling the underlying shares at the contract’s strike price.
For example, say you bought 100 shares of AAPL for $110 per share. AAPL stock is trading slightly below $205 but hit a high of $259.81. You want to protect your unrealized gains in case the price falls further. Looking at the daily chart of AAPL below, further downside looks highly probable.
FIGURE 1. DAILY CHART OF AAPL STOCK. A declining trend, a technically weak chart, and lukewarm momentum indicate a higher probability of further decline.Chart source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.
If you were to buy a put, what strike price and expiration would you choose? That can be a time-consuming exercise, but the OptionsPlay Add-on in StockCharts does it for you quickly. Here’s how.
Below the chart, click the Options menu, found under Tools & Resources. You’ll see the Options Chain by default (Options Summary).
Click the OptionsPlay button above the Options Chain to access the OptionsPlay Explorer. You’ll see the three optimal strategies listed.
FIGURE 2. OPTIMAL OPTIONS STRATEGIES FOR AAPL STOCK. You could sell 100 shares of AAPL, buy a put, or buy a put vertical spread. You can analyze the three scenarios and determine which one will help protect your equity position.Image source: StockCharts.com. For educational purposes.
The recommended long put (displayed in the middle) is the June 20 $205 put, which will cost $1,170. You have to decide if it’s worth paying this much premium to protect your position in the stock. If the stock price rises above $205 by expiration, your contract will expire worthless. You would have lost $1,170. Are you willing to take that risk?
You can modify the strategy by changing the expiration and strike price of the contract. This will help determine if there are more favorable risk-to-reward scenarios. The following scenarios could play out:
Scenario 1: The stock price falls below $205.
You could sell the put option for a profit, which will offset some of the unrealized losses from the decline in the stock’s price.
You could also choose to exercise the option and sell the shares for $205. You would walk away with a profit of $8,330 ($9,500 – 1,170).
Scenario 2: The stock price is above $205 by expiration.
Your put contract will expire worthless.
If you think the stock price will drop as contract expiration gets close, you could roll it to a further-out expiration. You’d sell your $205 June put and purchase another put option with a later expiration.
When buying puts, your maximum risk is limited to what you pay for the premium.
There’s More You Can Do
The strategy on the right shows a put vertical strategy, which has a much lower cost, a higher OptionsPlay score, and a potential reward of $2,145, which is much lower than buying a put.
The put vertical involves adding a lower strike price put with the same expiration. This would be a two-leg options trade—you buy the June 20 205 put and sell the June 20 $175 put.
The benefit of the put vertical is that you limit your risk to $855 (the debit). This will happen if AAPL is above $205 and both puts expire worthless.
Your potential reward is limited to $2,145 (strike price – debit), which you will realize if AAPL’s stock price falls below $175. The probability of profit of the put vertical is 41.79%, versus 37.48% for the long put.
The Bottom Line
Buying puts and put vertical spreads can protect your options positions in a declining market. You still need to evaluate the cost of protection versus your profit potential, just as you would when you’re shopping for insurance.
The benefit of using the OptionsPlay Add-on is that the legwork is done for you. All you have to do is evaluate the different strategies, which are spelled out for you in simple terms. To learn more about the features available in the OptionsPlay Add-on, visit the StockCharts TV OptionsPlay with Tony Zhang YouTube channel.
Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice. The ideas and strategies should never be used without first assessing your personal and financial situation or without consulting a financial professional.
The Trump administration has fast tracked the permitting of 10 US mining projects under the FAST-41 infrastructure initiative, escalating the government’s strategy of bolstering domestic minerals output and reducing foreign reliance.
The announcement, made on April 18 by the White House and the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council), comes in direct response to President Donald Trump’s executive order, which mandates swift and accountable action to facilitate the development of the nation’s vast mineral reserves.
“This is the first use of the Permitting Council’s transparency authority, and we look forward to showcasing the many benefits the Federal Permitting Dashboard can bring to critical infrastructure projects,” said Manisha Patel, acting executive director at the Permitting Council.
The ten projects, which include sites for lithium, copper, antimony, phosphate, potash, and metallurgical coal, have been formally granted FAST-41 status—a designation from the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act that streamlines environmental reviews and interagency coordination for major infrastructure projects.
The status does not exempt them from environmental regulations but aims to cut bureaucratic delays and improve transparency by publishing real-time permitting progress on a federal dashboard.
Among the fast-tracked projects are:
McDermitt exploration project in Oregon — HiTech Minerals
Caldwell Canyon phosphate mine in Idaho
Lisbon Valley copper project in Utah
Michigan potash project
Libby exploration project in Montana
While some of these projects are still in exploration or environmental assessment stages, their inclusion on the dashboard signals priority status.
In practice, this means their permitting timelines will now be coordinated among relevant agencies and tracked publicly to reduce administrative redundancies that have historically delayed US mining ventures for up to a decade.
The move underscores the Trump administration’s broader policy of “American Energy Dominance,” which includes securing domestic supply chains for critical materials used in electronics, electric vehicles, clean energy technologies, and military hardware.
A recent Interior statement warned that continued dependence on imports—especially from geopolitical competitors like China—poses a threat to national security.
“For too long, duplicative processes and regulatory paralysis have delayed the development of the minerals America needs to power everything from national defense systems to smartphones,” Adam Suess, Acting Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management at the Department of the Interior, emphasized in the same release.
“By cutting red tape and increasing accountability, we’re making it clear that under President Trump, the United States is serious about being a global leader in critical minerals,” Suess added.
The designation also includes expansions to lithium projects, with Albemarle’s Silver Peak Mine in Nevada—currently the only operating lithium mine in the US—now poised for accelerated expansion.
The focus on lithium, antimony, copper, and rare earth elements comes as the US seeks to diversify supply away from China, which currently dominates the global trade in many of these strategic materials.
Furthermore, the announcement follows President Trump’s directive earlier this month to launch a federal probe into possible new tariffs on all critical mineral imports, signaling a more aggressive stance toward reshoring key elements of the nation’s industrial supply chain.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
The oil sector faced volatility throughout the first quarter of 2025.
Concerns around weak demand, increasing supply and trade tensions came to head in early April, pushing oil prices to four year lows and eroding the support Brent and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) had above the US$65 per barrel level.
Starting the year at US$75 (Brent) and US$72 (WTI), the oil benchmarks rallied in mid-January, reaching five month highs of US$81.86 and US$78.90, respectively. Tariff threats and trade tensions between the US and China, along with soft demand in Asia and Europe, dampened the global economic outlook for 2025 and added headwinds for oil prices.
This pressure caused oil prices to slip to Q1 lows of US$69.12 (Brent) and US$66.06 (WTI) in early March.
“The macroeconomic conditions that underpin our oil demand projections deteriorated over the past month as trade tensions escalated between the United States and several other countries,” a March oil market report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) notes, highlighting the downside risks of US tariffs and retaliatory measures.
The instability and weaker-than-expected consumption from advanced and developing economies prompted the IEA to downgrade its growth estimates for Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 to about 1.2 million barrels per day.
Despite the uncertain outlook, an announcement that OPEC+ would extend a 2.2 million barrel per day production cut into Q2 added some support to the market amid global growth concerns and rising output in the US.
Prices spiked at the end of March, pushing both benchmarks to within a dollar of their 2025 start values. However, the rally was short-lived and prices had plummeted by April 9.
Oil prices fall as OPEC hikes output and supply risks mount
WTI price performance, December 31, 2024, to April 23, 2025.
Sinking to four year lows, Brent and WTI fell below the critical US$60 per barrel threshold, to US$58.62 (Brent) and US$55.38 (WTI), lows not seen since April 2021. The decline saw prices shed more than 21 percent between January and April shaking the market and investor confidence.
Watch Hansen discuss where oil and other commodities are heading.
According to Hansen, if prices remain in the high US$50 range US production will likely decrease, aiding in a broader market realignment. ‘Eventually we will see production start to slow in the US, probably other places as well, and that will help balance the market,” the expert explained in the interview. “Helping to offset some of the risk related to recession, but also some of the production increases that we’re seeing from OPEC.”
In early April, OPEC+ did an about face when it announced plans for a significant increase in oil production, marking its first output hike since 2022. The group plans to add 411,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the market starting in May, effectively accelerating its previously gradual supply increase strategy.
Although the group cited “supporting market stability” as the reasoning behind the increase, some analysts believe the decision is a punitive one targeted at countries like Iraq and Kazakhstan who consistently exceed production quotas.
“(The increase) is basically in order to punish some of the over producers,” said Hansen. He went on to explain that Kazakhstan produced 400,000 barrels beyond its quota.
If these countries return to their agreed limits, it could offset OPEC’s planned production hikes.
At the same time, US sanctions on Iran and Venezuela may tighten global supply further, while a growing military presence in the Middle East also signals rising geopolitical risks, particularly involving Iran.
Oil price forecast for 2025
As such Hansen expects prices to fluctuate between US$60 to US$80 for the rest of the year.
“(I am) struggling to see, prices collapse much further than that, simply because it will have a counterproductive impact on supply and that will eventually help stabilize prices,” said Hansen.
Hansen’s projections also fall inline with data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The organization downgraded the US$74 Brent price forecast it set in March to US$68 in April.
The EIA foresees US and global oil production to continue rising in 2025, as OPEC+ speeds up its planned output increases and US energy remains exempt from new tariffs.
Starting mid-year, global oil inventories are projected to build. However, the EIA warns that economic uncertainty could dampen demand growth for petroleum products, potentially falling short of earlier forecasts.
“The combination of growing supply and lower demand leads EIA to expect the Brent crude oil price to average less than US$70 per barrel in 2025 and fall to an average of just over US$60 per barrel in 2026,” the April report read.
Supply concerns add tailwinds for natural gas
On the natural gas side, Q1 was marked by tight conditions amid rising demand. A colder-than-normal winter led to increased consumption, with US natural gas withdrawals in Q1 exceeding the five-year average.
Starting the year at US$3.59 per metric million British thermal units, prices rose to a year-to-date high of US$4.51 on March 10. Values pulled back by the end of the 90 day period to the US$4.09 level, registering a 13.9 percent increase for Q1.
‘Cold weather during January and February led to increased natural gas consumption and large natural gas withdrawals from inventories,” a March report from the EIA explains.
Natural gas price performance, December 31, 2024, to April 23, 2025.
“(The) EIA now expects natural gas inventories to fall below 1.7 trillion cubic feet at the end of March, which is 10 percent below the previous five-year average and 6 percent less natural gas in storage for that time of year than EIA had expected last month,’ the document continues.
Natural gas price forecast for 2025
Following record setting demand growth in 2024 the gas market is expected to remain tight through 2025, amid market expansion from Asian countries.
The IEA also pointed to price volatility brought on geopolitical tensions as a factor that could move markets.
“Though the halt of Russian piped gas transit via Ukraine on 1 January 2025 does not pose an imminent supply security risk for the European Union, it could increase LNG import requirements and tighten market fundamentals in 2025,” the organization notes in a gas market report for Q1.
Although the market is forecasted to remain tight the IEA expects growth in global gas demand to slow to below 2 percent in 2025. Similarly to 2024’s trajectory, growth is set to be largely driven by Asia, which is expected to account for almost 45 percent of incremental gas demand, the report read.
THe US-based EIA has a more optimistic outlook for the domestic gas sector, projecting the annual demand growth rate to be 4 percent for 2025.
“This increase is led by an 18 percent increase in exports and a 9 percent increase in residential and commercial consumption for space heating,” an April EIA market overview states.
The report attributes the expected export growth to increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments out of two new LNG export facilities, Plaquemines Phase 1 and Golden Pass LNG.
Venture Global’s (NYSE:VG) Plaquemines LNG facility in Louisiana commenced production in December 2024 and is currently in the commissioning phase.
Once fully operational, it is expected to have a capacity of 20 million metric tons per annum. The facility has entered into binding long-term sales agreements for its full capacity
Golden Pass LNG, a joint venture between ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and state-owned QatarEnergy, is under construction in Sabine Pass, Texas. The project has faced delays due to the bankruptcy of a key contractor, with Train 1 now expected to be operational by late 2025 . Upon completion, Golden Pass LNG will have an export capacity of up to 18.1 million metric tons per annum.
The EIA forecasts natural gas prices to average US$4.30 in 2025, a US$2.10 increase from 2025. Farther ahead the EIA has a more modest forecast of US$4.60 for 2026.
Securities Disclosure: I, Georgia Williams, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Boeing could hand over some of its aircraft that were destined for Chinese airlines to other carriers after China stopped taking deliveries of its planes amid a trade war with the United States.
“They have in fact stopped taking delivery of aircraft due to the tariff environment,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Wednesday.
Ortberg said that a few 737 Max planes that were in China set to be delivered to carriers there have been flown back to the U.S.
He said some jets that were intended for Chinese customers, as well as aircraft the company was planning to build for China later this year, could go to other customers.
“There’s plenty of customers out there looking for the Max aircraft,” Ortberg said. “We’re not going to wait too long. I’m not going to let this derail the recovery of our company.”
The CEO’s comments came after Boeing reported a narrower-than-expected loss for the first quarter and cash burn that came in better than analysts feared as airplane deliveries surged in the three months ended March 31.
President Donald Trump earlier this month issued sweeping tariffs on imports to the U.S. While he paused some of the highest rates, the trade war with China has only ramped up.
Trump said Tuesday that he’s open to taking a less confrontational approach to trade talks with China, calling the current 145% tariff on Chinese imports “very high.”
“It won’t be that high. … No, it won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down substantially. But it won’t be zero,” Trump said.
Five years removed from the onset of the Covid pandemic, Google is demanding that some remote employees return to the office if they want to keep their jobs and avoid being part of broader cost cuts at the company.
Several units within Google have told remote staffers that their roles may be at risk if they don’t start showing up at the closest office for a hybrid work schedule, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. Some of those employees were previously approved for remote work.
As the pandemic slips further into the rearview mirror, more companies are tightening their restrictions on remote work, forcing some staffers who moved to distant locations to reconsider their priorities if they want to maintain their employment. The change in tone is particularly acute in the tech industry, which jumped so aggressively into flexible work arrangements in 2020 that San Francisco’s commercial real estate market is still struggling to recover.
Google began offering some U.S. full-time employees voluntary buyouts at the beginning of 2025, and some remote staffers were told that would be their only option if they didn’t return to the nearest office at least three days a week.
The latest threats land at a time when Google and many of its tech peers are looking to slash costs while simultaneously pouring money into artificial intelligence, which requires hefty expenditures on infrastructure and technical talent. Since conducting widespread layoffs in early 2023, Google has undertaken targeted cuts across various teams, emphasizing the importance of increased AI investments.
As of the end of last year, Google had about 183,000 employees, down from roughly 190,000 two years earlier.
Google offices in New York in 2023.Leonardo Munoz / VIEWpress / Corbis via Getty Images file
Google co-founder Sergey Brin told AI workers in February that they should be in the office every weekday, with 60 hours a week being “the sweet spot of productivity,” according to a memo viewed by CNBC. Brin said the company has to “turbocharge” efforts to keep up with AI competition, which “has accelerated immensely.”
Courtenay Mencini, a Google spokesperson, said the decisions around remote worker return demands are based on individual teams and not a companywide policy.
“As we’ve said before, in-person collaboration is an important part of how we innovate and solve complex problems,” Mencini said in a statement to CNBC. “To support this, some teams have asked remote employees that live near an office to return to in-person work three days a week.”
According to one recent notice, employees in Google Technical Services were told that they’re required to switch to a hybrid office schedule or take a voluntary exit package. Remote employees in the unit are being offered a one-time paid relocation expense to move within 50 miles of an office.
Remote employees in human resources, or what Google calls People Operations, who live within 50 miles of an office, are required to be in person on a hybrid basis by mid-April or their role will be eliminated, according to an internal memo. Staffers in that unit who are approved for remote work and live more than 50 miles away from an office can keep their current arrangements, but will have to go hybrid if they want new roles at the company.
Google previously offered a voluntary exit program to U.S.-based full-time employees in People Operations, starting in March, according to a memo sent by HR chief Fiona Cicconi in February.
That came after the company said in January that it would be offering voluntary exit packages to full-time employees in the U.S. in the Platforms and Devices group, which includes Android, Chrome and products like Fitbit and Nest. The unit has made cuts to nearly two-dozen teams as of this month. While internal correspondence indicated that remote work was a factor in the layoffs, Mencini said it was not a main consideration for the changes.
A year ago, Google combined its Android unit with its hardware group under the leadership of Rick Osterloh, a senior vice president. Osterloh said in January that the voluntary exit plan may be a fit for employees who struggle with the hybrid work schedule.
Mencini told CNBC that, since the groups merged, the team has “focused on becoming more nimble and operating more effectively and this included making some job reductions in addition to the voluntary exit program.” She added that the unit continues to hire in the U.S. and globally.
