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.

Spotlight Half Hour After Close

By -

For those interested, I'll be hosting a Spotlight Session on TOS (I think with Tom……….) at 4:30 EST (half hour after the close). This will be my final post for a while, so I'll leave you with a final chunk of Put option ideas with stop prices.

ABC 38.47
ABX 40
AEM 67.39
ARE 66.58
AU 28.49
DRI 29.55
GILD 52.35
GWW 77.07
HRS 43.44
LLL 80.42
LMT 85.99
MHS 44.90
MIL 55.99
NBL 56.82
NEM 45.83
RGLD 49.81
SQNM 29.14
STRA 239.99
XTO 41.90

A Few Long Shots

By -

 

My IRA account (which is full of high-risk, battered-down stocks – – all of them long positions) was doing well even earlier today when the market was down hard. Heartened by this, I have added this new positions with the corresponding stop prices:

BID 7.47
DDS 3.04
DYN 1.84
EK 6.14
FLEX 2.19
GFIG 2.60
HLF 18.27
KLAC 17.15
LSE 1.58
MRVL 5.65
OME 3.91
PL 8.38
RAME .76
SLM 7.89
STEI 2.78
WFMI 10.75

Downslope

By -

Never overestimate the intelligence of the public.

I was just in my car, listening to the radio, and they were discussing California's budget crisis. Among the entities hit is the Cal State system, and they interviewed a senior at Cal State Hayward about the budget cuts. I'm paraphrasing here, but she said something along these lines: "It's important everyone have an opportunity to go to college. These days, you need a Master's degree to get any job. Plus all the baby boomers are coming. There are a jillion and two of them, and they need a place to go."

If I could respond to this young woman, I would point out a couple of things:

  1. It doesn't take a Master's degree to get a job; indeed, the only jobs that are surviving this economy are the kinds of jobs that high school graduates (or not) can get. Those with higher education degrees are probably having a tougher time finding the high-paying jobs they believe they deserve than those who want to flip burgers;
  2. Errr, the "baby boomers" aren't coming. They've come. And gone. It indicates an appalling ignorance of, well, just about anything to believe that the baby boomers are just about to enter college. The woman who believes this is, by the way, going to have her college degree in June.

Anyway, enough of that. The /ES has been rough-and-tumble today; I covered at 805 but re-entered at 823, and I'm hoping for a real tumble by the close.