A smart way to protect yourself from rising gas prices is by hedging your annual usage using one ETF. A hedge is an investment that is taken out specifically to reduce or cancel out the risk in another investment. The ETF is UGA- United State Gasoline Fund L.P. It trades on the NYSE just like any other stock like Microsoft, IBM or Apple.

Assuming we’re long anything at this point, what puts would we use as a hedge, and how many do we need? First, we have to figure out how our portfolio moves in relation to the market. We know that four out of five stocks move in the same direction as the market trend, but by how much? Two numbers can give us a pretty good idea: beta and R-squared...