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 Trouble with Honesty

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I've been doing this blog for a very long time, and during these many years, I have consistently tried to be as open, honest, and transparent as possible.

That has been a good decision, because the "metrics" that matter to me – – a growing base of readers, a fantastic community of highly intelligent and mutually supportive Slopers, and a respectful atmosphere – – is exactly what I set out to achieve. Sometimes the truth can make me look foolish, and I certainly open myself up to trolls and mean-spirited outsiders by being so open – – but I'd rather be open than a charlatan.

There are fee-based newsletters which excel at making themselves look right, no matter what their track record is. The art of using weasel words and revisionist history seems to flourish in the realm of financial opinion. (Try declaring "Wave 2 is through!" for twelve consecutive months and see how it sounds). I don't want to be a part of that.

Of course, this is on my mind because last week was a rough one for me, and I did a couple of posts that made me particularly vulnerable. One spoke in stark terms about the horrible day I had on Wednesday, September 1st, and another asked quite openly for help from my readers on seeking a technical indicator which quickly got dubbed as an unfindable "holy grail."

Neither of these posts were necessary, but both of them were consistent with how I run this blog. The easier choice on Wednesday would have been to simply Change The Subject and talk about something else (pretending it wasn't an awful day) or, if I were a real scumbag, say what a terrific day I had. Instead, I opened myself up to derision (which was probably like Christmas  to the frat boys at you-know-where).

It's funny, because when I was making triple-digit gains, I was accused by some of being full of it. And yet when I bemoan a 4% loss, a few people laugh at a supposed train wreck. I'm still very much in the game, fellas.

This all got brought up because of an incident today. I noticed that Dutch had zapped someone on the site for some nastiness. Since the nastiness was deleted, I didn't see what it was, or who posted it, so I forgot about it. Later today, the author of the aforementioned nastiness emailed me, going off on me about banning him from the site (which I didn't) and not being open to other opinions (which isn't true).

This fellow and I have been emailing each other back and forth pretty much all day long. His concern has been that my bearish bias has been leading readers into "ambushes". I have made no secret that I've been seeking concrete techniques as a counterweight to my well-known bearish bias, and I think I've got a few solid ones now, thanks to the help of dozens and dozens of people that have emailed me their suggestions.

The bottom line for me is that Slope has a culture I like, and part of that culture is borne from being open and honest, through the good and the bad. Sometimes I'm brilliant, sometimes I'm a moron, and most of the time I'm somewhere in between. (Lately "moron" would probably be about right). I will leave you with this:

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may just never be enough;
Give the world the best you have anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it's all between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

A Good Labor Day Read

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As I've mentioned in the past, most folks tend to move from liberal to conservative as they get older. Contrarian that I am, I'm doing this all backwards, because I would make the most avid libertarian embarrassed with my reactionary politics from my teenage years, whereas the bailout from the financial crisis has caused the inner lefty within me to start creeping out.

Anyway, I read this terrific piece yesterday, and I urge you to do the same. Here's a tidbit:

Instead, we are talking about people who are already fantastically rich.  And who, despite this, are absolutely hell-bent on getting richer, even if that means depriving hundreds of millions of people in the American middle class of their middle classness, and in many cases, ultimately of their lives.  How do we explain people like this?  Are they not essentially sociopathic?  Are they not made of essentially the same stuff as those who can kill without guilt or remorse?  Especially when you consider that even the greediest among us reach a limit beyond which one can effectively make use of the next dollar and the one beyond that, so that pushing others into poverty is no longer even for purposes of your own benefit, but instead for some kind of sick sport?  Aren't these the characters whose essential sickness preachers and philosophers and shrinks have been trying to sort out for millennia? 

The Goodwin Omen (by Nathaniel Goodwin)

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I have seen many great posts on indicators and techniques recently, so I thought I would share one of my own. I call it the “Goodwin Omen”, and it was triggered about two weeks ago.
 
The Goodwin Omen has been triggered before every powerful rally for the past 4 1/2 years. A specific criteria or set of events need to take place within a one month time frame for the Goodwin Omen to be triggered. When it is triggered, it is time for the bears to go back into hibernation or have their faces ripped off.

The first criteria for the Goodwin Omen to come to fruition is for the daily 10 and 20 day moving averages to be headed south.

The second criteria/event of the Goodwin Omen involves my cat, Joe Bangles. Joe Bangles needs to suffer from diarrhea for 3 days out of 5 with at least one day of normal solid scat in between bouts of diarrhea. This omen signal was validated Aug 19-23.

The third criteria involves my grandmother falling off the wagon and verbally abusing the television while watching The Young and the Restless. I’ve found it critical that she is arguing with the cast of Young and the Restless, any other show seems to weaken the omen. This omen signal was validated by my Mother Aug 11th.

The final criteria/event involves a nasty acne or contact dermatitis breakout which was validated Aug 27th, and is still haunting me as I type this. (Shoutout to Justin Bieber and his Proactive commercial, it's working better than Tim Knight's shipment of Oxy10)

If the Zweig Breadth Thrust is also triggered this Tuesday or Wednesday by rising from 40 to 61.5 within a 10 day period (which many will consider very bullish for the next year and a half), I will celebrate another successful Goodwin Omen prophecy to have taken place. If we instead drop like a stone; that’s okay also since the market has already successfully accomplished the 3.45% gain which is required to validate the Goodwin Omen. Best of luck to all of you.


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