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.

What Is Silver Telling Us?

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The parabolic move in silver rivals the insanity of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Priceline, and AutoZone. The difference, of course, is that these three companies pretty much didn't exist ten years ago, whereas silver has been with us since – – well – – way longer than any living thing.

The last time silver went bananas like this during the past several decades was in 1979 and 1980. Take a look:

Picture 2

There are a couple of things worth noting. One, once the breakout occurred, silver had a long way to go – – – a move similar to the above would put silver north of $100 per ounce. Second, once the move exhausted itself, the collapse was just as sudden.

Ever since following the wise suggestion of selling my 1000 ounce silver brick, I've had a rather distorted view of silver, but by and large I avoid it like the plague. I'm not sure what silver is trying to tell us, but if God popped down for a moment to tell me it would be trading in the triple digits before it was all over, I wouldn't be that surprised.

If I owned silver, I'd be inclined to hang on. With no position, I shall simply remain a very interested observer.

I'm going to go look at non-silver charts now. See you on Tuesday morning.

Terra-Nitrogen, No Laughing Matter (by BKudla)

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I think the Hard Asset markets are getting frothy, and am looking for some hedges on my long positions. Terra Nitrogen is simultaneously long fertilizers (Urea) and short natural gas (its feedstock), with 64% of their expense in natural gas.

Like the uranium and coal markets, I believe agriculture chemicals are relatively inelastic to the price of the dollar, and nitrogen has another boost in that it is a feed component to corn, which has its own economics of ethanol production.  If my view on colder winters and shorter growing seasons hold true, farmers will need to apply extra Urea to ensure rapid crop growth.  These benefit TNH.

Terra – Nitrogen also pays out a 8.7% dividend through an MLP, and is 75% owned by insiders.  This makes them shareholder friendly a nice source of cash while you await capital appreciation.

I have two buy areas, and will scale in at these points.

2010-11-08_1451_TNH 

Georgia On My Mind

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As I gaze upon SLV's closing price of $27.15, my thoughts turn to practitioners of the Elliott Wave "theory" (and I do mean "theory") and their urgent pleadings many moons ago to dump silver when it was eight bucks an ounce.

As a form of therapy, I suggest a brief pause here on Slope to indulge ourselves in some traditional 5-7-5 haiku. I'll begin with my own trio, and I look forward to yours……

Ever-surging stocks
All predictions rendered moot
Wave 3, anyone?

When projections fail
Just call it an extension
Who's to say you're wrong?

Random counts and waves
Thirteen possible next moves
Who profits from this?

1108-bearhaiku