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.

The Sloper Tax

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A thoughtful reader sent me this information about yet another attempt to create a transaction tax on trading. The stomach-turning title of this bill is Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Act of 2009

Errr, if you want "Wall Street" to pay for the follies of the government, how about a confiscatory tax of all the investment bank's profits for the past 7 years? Oh, I forgot. Goldman Sachs has Obama by the balls. It'll never happen.

So the little guys – – – that's us, folks – – – are staring down another shotgun barrel. I can guarantee you that Blankfein and his clan won't be subject to this kind of thing. The least shocking bit is the mention about parties which are supporting such a tax:

The groups include: Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO, among others.

DIG – the Pattern That Never Launched

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In my attempt about a month ago to try to find something I could actually take on as a long position without holding my nose, I came across DIG, which seemed to have completed a decent basing pattern. The ETF never took off, however, and I think the technical damage to this is so bad at this point that the potential for it to get up to $50 (my most optimistic target) anytime soon is very small.

So much so, that I bought DUG this morning instead. Strangely, DUG isn't as well-formed a pattern as DIG is malformed (even though they are opposites), but I am basing my DUG purchase largely on DIG's vulnerability.

1124-dig

Synchronicity (by Jeff Patterson)

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Look at the charts for CCI, AMT, SBAC. They all formed a very similar bar yesterday. I like the fact that the whole group showed the same formations, which is a key signal to me and I believe a short term pull back is on its way. Now I'm not saying its a trend change and I will be reversing my position when the 30d or 50d s.m.a's are hit.

I marked an X above all the bars yesterday.

Snapshot-55

Snapshot-56

Snapshot-57

Ultrashort Financials

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The first twenty minutes have been nice and steady for me. I've got 220 positions – every one of 'em short – and even though the /ES wasn't exactly setting the world on fire (inching slowly from unchanged to a very small negative), the net profit column has been inching higher, slowly but surely. Just what I want to see.

I only have one "long" positions right now – SKF – and I'm very fond of it (the ultrabear financials). Strictly speaking, this isn't a textbook-perfect inverted H&S, but it's awfully close. Its only flaw is that the left shoulder is a little higher than the right, but only by twenty-five cents, so I can live with that. I'm excited by its prospects.

1124-skf