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.

What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

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I know that in your busy lives, there have been a couple of questions that have been getting in the way of your daily routine. Specifically:

  1. What kinds of things bother Tim?; and
  2. What should I buy Tim for Christmas?

Yes, yes, vexing questions. I will provide you answers to the second question later this month. As for the first, I offer you a new permanent part of the Slope site………….Tim's Pet Peeves Page. Enjoy.

Thank You!

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My day has been pretty badly chopped up with various commitments, but I got a chance to quickly read responses to my Wish List post, and I'm so grateful for all the wonderful feedback.

I've been watching the market, but only occasionally, today. Basically I've taken my trading from 5th gear (getting up at 4 a.m., watching it obsessively…..) to 2nd gear (leaving my stops in place, glancing at it from time to time). Trying to catch every uptick and downtick has a very small chance of success, and to be blunt, my confidence in the very substantial gains to be had on the upswing overshadow my concern about missing every little move.

Added to which, it's a lot less work. My positions are carefully selected, and my stops are placed very precisely. Whether the market moves up big or down big, I'm going to participate, because I've got selections in both directions (for some reason, I'm doing a lot of rhyming these days; perhaps I've been reading too much Seuss).

Anyway, thanks again for the terrific feedback. That really helps, and you'll see great things in the coming months.

Bear Market in VIX Coming

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One of the key elements to the Promised Land (early next year) is for the VIX to go down, and go down a lot. Based on the action I'm seeing in the VIX, it seems a softening in the offing, to around the low 30s.

I am having a very fellow trading day……….everything's pretty much taking care of itself. So things are going to be less frenetic than usual. Indeed, another part of the March to the Promised Land is probably going to be dwindling traffic on this site. I fully expect that, and I'll try not to take it too personally 🙂

Humpty Hump

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So far, so good. The "backing and filling" process is making some headway, and I've increased my DBA exposure. I like how OIH is shaping up.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it……..if there's going to be a rally, commodities are going to lead the way. And if there's going to be a rally, it's going to be a barnstormer.

I still have a very balanced portfolio – – each chart based on its own merits – – but if we do indeed continue to firm up and move higher, it's going to keep tilting to the bull side, all with the aim of an exit early next year as we move toward what may be the bearish opportunity of a lifetime. But that's going to be a while (at least measured in SlopeTime).

Promising Long Shots

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A couple of days ago, I bought into a large quantity of small high-risk/high-reward positions (the entire 41 of which you can see in the watch list in the right column labeled Long Stocks (High Risk). It's only been a couple of days, but the behavior of this set of stocks has been pretty encouraging so far.

Most of them look something like this:

One might assume I've taken leave of my senses, since this kind of chart looks like that of a company headed for $0. I'm sure in a few cases it does. But I've spread my bets so widely, and my confidence of a general market boost sometime in the next couple of months is so strong, I've put an entire account into precisely these kinds of positions. And I think I'll be able to do something in this account in a very short amount of time I normally wouldnt' be able to do………….double it.

Here are a few samples (with closer views than you normally see, plus volume) of these holdings.

I would note that CEG, shown above, is a good example of the kind of meaty percentage gain I'm after; its trading pre-market is showing a 15% gain, and I think there's plenty more where that came from.