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.

Does Anyone Work Anymore?

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I've been thinking a lot lately about the kinds of companies that are taking the world by storm and are garnering ten-digit valuations. There's Facebook – where people put up pictures, status messages, and share links. There's Groupon, where people share coupons to buy stuff they probably don't really need. There's Zynga, the incredibly popular Facebook-based gaming site. And Twitter, where people tweet status messages (99.99999% of them utterly banal) to their followers.

The thing that strikes me is how useless all these sites are. I mean, sure, they are useful in the abstract sense. I've got over 4,000 followers on Twitter, and I'm grateful that it exists. And I enjoy putting updates on my Facebook page.

But……..does anyone actually work anymore? Because between all the concerts, movies, DVDs, iPhone apps, web sites, and all the rest of it, it seems that humanity is marching lockstep toward a life of sedentary idleness. I realize not all of us need to be farmers, but perhaps Devo was right about where we're all heading. Intellectual curiousity and industry seem to be going bye-bye. In its stead are Angry Birds and iFart.

0217-grumpy

Miners’ Line in the Sand

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I has been avoiding trading precious metals on the whole, since there are just too many weird rumors floating around that are hard to take into account when making decisions (the most notably of which is the famed JP Morgan short position in silver which, if true, must be killing those guys). I will note that if GDX gets much stronger at this point, the H&S pattern is kaput. I'm watching this with interest.

0217-gdx

AAII Sentiment Survey – Week Ending 2/15 (by Ultra Trading)

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This week's AAII Investor Sentiment (asks of one's market view over the next six months) is out and still in the bullish camp.  Those answering bullish dropped 2.8% this week to a still above average 46.6%. Those answering bearish dropped 1.3% this week to a still below average of 25.6%.

 

The SPX continues to ignore prior correlations and the AAII sentiment data is yet another.  The charts below speak for themselves as the divergence over the past few months continues to grow new levels.

 

 

 

Submitted by Ultra Trading.  If you would like to read more, please visit - Ultra Trading