Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Ten. Million. Dollars.

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I have written about my town, Palo Alto, many times here on the Slope of Hope (a sampling can be found by clicking here), and these posts tend to focus on its rapidly-escalating real estate prices. I personally think we’re past the top at this point, since I’ve noticed the For Sale signs in my neighborhood are actually just sitting there. It used to be that houses sold instantly. At this point, I’m noticing the signs lingering for weeks. Something has changed.

In spite of this, I noticed something on my regular early morning dog walk that I wanted to mention. In the twilight of 5:30 a.m., I noticed a small home around the corner from mine had a For Sale sign. I had long noticed this little house, because it was on a surprisingly large lot, almost completely devoid of anything but squirrels, and it was a cute little cottage. Having seen the sign, I was curious what they were asking. Two million? Three million, perhaps?

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Following Up on that Break

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On Tuesday, I wrote this post, which declared that the ES uptrend was broken. Now I want to say two things very clearly at the outset. First off, the last couple of months have been very hard on me, and earlier this week in particular was devastatingly hard from an emotional standpoint (Northy and I were holding onto each other for dear life at times). So I confess I was reaching a bit to look for any “good news” for the bears, which was a motivation behind the post (although I absolutely was sincere about the trendline break).

Second, the comments I’m going to share below are in no way meant to disrespect or “call out” the folks replying, because they were said respectfully (and God knows I’ve been wrong more often than right in my lifetime). At the time, they did sting a bit, because – – let’s face it – – charting is my life, and if my interpretation of trendlines isn’t valid (or if trendlines themselves are pointless), well, I might as well go work in Home Depot.

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