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.

News and the Financial Markets

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Given the market's resilience to bad news lately (the swine flu being the latest example), I thought a guide to news events and their effects on the market would be helpful to Slopers.

Event  Net Effect on Equity Markets
Threatened nuclear detonation in major U.S. city Quick drop on Dow of 30 points, followed by major rally, particularly in building material stocks.
Successful detonation of nuclear bomb in U.S. city  The Dow plunges 50 points and holds its lows most of the day; next morning is seen as buying opportunity. Dow +210.
US Treasury declares all national currency in circulation is now worth 5 times its nominal face value.  Dow soars 600, easing back to 550 by day's end.
Chili's and Cheesecake Factory issue a joint press release stating that leftover onion rings taken home may also be used as effective marital aids.  Relatively small effect on Dow, but restaurant stocks push 32% higher.
JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and B of A announce they are all bankrupt, due to having dispensed remaining corporate assets to executives into a special retention bonus program.  FAZ finally pushes higher – this time by 7 cents – before collapsing to sub-$1 for reasons no one can explain.
Geithner picks nose, discreetly pulling out booger.  Quick spike of 70 points.
 ….then eats it.  Followed by fresh surge of another 50 points.

Deja Monday?

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Maybe God read my braggadocio about my circadian rhythm and decided to teach me a lesson, because I woke up late this morning (half an hour into the open) for no good reason.

Last night the /ES was down over 20 at one point, but as of this writing, it's recovered more than half of that. Is this going to be a repeat of last Monday, where we get a little drop only to soar higher the rest of the week? I won't speculate on that right now; what I will say is that it's pretty important we at least snap under 833 for this to get any more interesting for the bears.

Time to play catch-up…….