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.

Let’s Look at Occupy’s Demands

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I mentioned at the end of last night's video my disappointment in the "demands" that Occupy Wall Street was making of the world. First off, I've never liked the word "demand" – – it sounds too……demanding. Even as a child, I didn't understand the concept of "Abortion On Demand" that some feminist groups insisted upon, but it sounded like something ugly and brutish.

More importantly, though, is the fact that this list is absurdly long and unrealistic. Let's take a look at these demands of theirs……my comments are in boldface:

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Big Bad Bond Bear

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I am really, really pleased with how I handled my portfolio today.

Did I make a ton of money? No, not at all. The percentage change was so close to zero we might as well call it zero. The good thing is that I covered most of my shorts at good profits and went long the Euro and shorted the Bond (via TLT) at good prices. So the fact I didn't lose a bunch of money is more important to me today, since repositioning can sometimes be a very costly exercise.

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Gold Unfinished on Downside (by Mike Paulenoff)

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Just about any and every way I look at my spot gold and the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) work, I conclude that both have unfinished business on the downside.

In terms of the GLD, all of the action off of the Sep 26 low at 154.19 represents a bearish consolidation-rest period, which when complete should resolve itself in a resumption of weakness that projects towards a test of its 200 DMA's in the vicinity of 150.00. After that I am expecting a powerful upside reversal.

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It’s Time to Chill

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The past ten weeks have been sensational, but it's time to step back. I've gone through a few hundred charts this morning already, and I have two dominant conclusions:

(1) The vast majority of individual stocks I follow for their bearish potential are deeply oversold and at risk for a substantial rally;

(2) Every one of these has levels that would make them sensational shorts, and I intend to enter them aggressively, one by one, as those price levels are reached. It could be a while.

This is  not to say I am flat, but I am much less aggressively positioned than before. I have 28 shorts and 2 longs right now, the longs being DBA and TBT. I have one medium-sized short on SPY that I entered today with a stop at 111.34. I think this is an important stop-loss level, since it represents the neckline of the pattern that "everyone" (!) is talking about.

Here's a potential path for the SPY, assuming this neckline holds sway (I've given the bounce up a bit of wiggle room). But, as Bernanke demonstrated this morning, and as I said in last night's video, the pandering politicians are bound to stop the fun, and it looks like that process has already started.

1004-spy