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.
Running in Place
Let me show you what the Russell 2000 index has done over the past two months:
We are almost exactly where we were eight weeks ago. We went down. Then up. Then down. And now up again.
And today was one of those days where the only portfolio of mine that thrived was my 401-k, which is packed with lottery plays again. Of the twenty "lotto" stocks in there, nineteen of them were up, and six of them were up in the double digits! LEE is up 25.34% since yesterday.
I'm afraid the next three trading days (which are all that's left of Q2 2009) will continue to be a grind. Monday was a blast, but it seems to have been a one-hit wonder. Perhaps once July starts, and the pressure is off the money managers to keep Q2 positive, the bears can start making some cash again.
In the meantime, the market is a bore. Sorry that the boredom is slipping into Slope, but it's hard to feign excitement on a day like this.
Three Low-Priced Standouts
Eight Ninety
I mentioned this week how important the shelf of support at 880 was; the bulls have a bit more fight in them than that, so 885-890 has actually been the line in the sand. The market has moved a lot higher this morning, pushing against the underside of the broken Fib fan. We might not get a resumption of the sell-off until the Q2 window-dressing is through.
Some Put Ideas
I am buying puts on the following stocks, and I am providing the contingent-stop price for each of them:
ACGL……………… 60.09
ASH……………… 29.99
FCN ………………54.56
GS……………… 150.79
ISRG……………… 170.66
MIL……………… 76.92
SIAL……………… 51.41
TROW……………… 44.64