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.

Adios, Hermanos

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The bulls' government-funded party is over.

As pleased as I am with the performance of my shorts (some of which are down more than 25% in the span of just a week or so), I continue to pop into very large bullish ETF positions to try to attenuate a push higher. I have had some success with DIG today. UWM – not so much.

I will yet again say: I would be absolutely thrilled with a push higher. 75% of my buying power is waiting in the wings. I am going to short the bejesus out of any lift in this market.

Again: the party is over. So the party has now begun.

1027-NDX

VIX Megaphone: ‘NOW HEAR THIS!’ (by Gary)

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Hi, Gary from biiwii posting again at the invitation of Tim, with whom I feel a kindred kind of thing as hope begins to drain from the bull case, little by little.  It is such a pleasure participating in da Slope.

Here is an updated look at the VIX and its megaphone AKA reverse symmetrical triangle (reversal) pattern.

"NOW
HEAR THIS!" blares the VIX… "Greedy bulls have had their fun, held
sway for a good long while, morphed Hope '09 into Full Tout '09, got
Wall Street to bonus season and generally reenacted the wonderful 50%
rally in hope off of the 1929 crash. You know the one, after which the
real depression descended. Happy days are not here again and it is
unfortunate that most casino patrons will come to that realization
after I begin to rise in earnest. I have not decided yet whether to
give the bulls one more run at the highs, but I will decide before too
long. This megaphone through which I give you my warning is a reversal
pattern after all."

Vix

Okay, that is what the VIX says. What
I say is that it feels so much like a false dawn that it is alarming
how people seem to have gone about their business as we head for the
tepid recovery that policy makers, media and Wall Street seem to be
touting. At best we will suffer from the law of diminishing returns
under a new and intense cycle of inflation. At worst, we go down again
and induce yet more panicked inflationary policy.

This is going
to sound overly sensitive in a 'he's giving us more information than we
need to know' sort of way, but we took our kids to see the movie Kit Kittredge
pre-crash and with everything I knew was directly ahead, it was too
much for your blogger who sat there with his eyes welling up through
half of it (I tend to do that over some really corny things too :-)).
How about the depression backdrop in Cinderella Man? Intense, man.

The other night I watched The Crash of 1929
on PBS. It was made in 1990, and indeed was intended to warn of the
possibility back then that it could happen again. Well, how did that
work out for the bears? I have no doubt that with each recession (like
1990), a new round of Great Depression lore gets whooped up, each time
providing the 'lever' for new and heroic inflation policy.

But
still, it feels like another hard down is coming and a lot of the data
I look at supports that idea. It feels like Indian Summer, just like
the one due here in New England imminently. There is a lot of noise out
there right now from the respective touts pitching their respective
wares in their respective sectors and asset classes. I expect it to all
fade away as the VIX trumpets the onset of stage 2, the GSR rampages
higher and Uncle Buck, pissed off like never before, stages a furious
short covering rally.

VIX: "That is all!"

Time for a Breather?

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As I suggested in my video last night, I would actually love to see a push higher by the market. The dollar has had quite a mini-rally lately, and my equity shorts have been doing great. But – frankly – I want to grow my positions substantially (I have only used 25% of my available buying power), and I'd like to do it at better prices. Plus I sort of like the idea of bulls getting lulled back into a sense of complacency. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

1028-usd