My friend Rob Reid has his first novel coming out July 10th (and, when this is a movie in a couple of years, you can say you read about it first on Slope). Here's a teaser he just did for the book, which you can pre-order with this link.
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.
Reality is a Jungle Not a Zoo (by Mark St.Cyr)
We hear the phrase “When reality bites, it bites hard.” yet many never contemplate just how hard or from where the teeth can lash out. More often than not when I’m discussing issues with someone they’ll somehow cloak an aura of encompassing protection from harm. Sometimes it has the dubious form that tragic results could never happen because if they don’t “think so,” well then that’s all that matters. Facts be damned. This is usually the tell-tale signs that these are people whom only think emotionally, not logically. You can’t argue or help change their viewpoint. They don’t care about anything else than telling you that you’re wrong regardless if they even understand the topic. Hence my use of the jungle vs zoo reference. Same animals within however one is far more dangerous than the other.
More often than one may realize many people are navigating their lives as if they are navigating the path within a zoo. You can tell them ad nauseam the injuries the animals within can inflict yet they seem to fall on deaf ears as you see them walk down the path where there will be no cages, no bars as to keep the dangers at bay. This is the path of real life and it is a jungle not a zoo with quite ferocious players contained within. Problem for many is they found out just how untamed and savage these financial markets can truly be. For some it will have lasting repercussions.
Harry Boxer’s Charts of the Day
Originally published on TheTechTrader.com.
Those Voices in My Head
This is going to be very quick, because between SocialTrade's launch, a new Slope of Hope forthcoming, my hedge fund, and this blog, I'm running around like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
I gobbled up a bunch of longs yesterday, and thank God for that. What a rally we've got! The cool part is that the bulls are simply purchasing plenty of rope at WalMart to hang themselves with later. They aren't even going to know what hit them.
In the meantime, the "all clear to short everything that has a ticker symbol" is the yellow zone on the ZB, which is approaching much faster than I dared imagine. Sharpen your hatchets, boys and girls.
Signs of Reversal (by Springheel Jack)
Obviously I've been talking at some length this week about the possibility of a bounce from the 200 DMA area and I think that may well be exactly what we are starting to see here. Let's consider the evidence.
Firstly I'll showed the 200 DMA analysis chart that I led with yesterday. You'll note that since the start of 2009 tests of the 200 DMA have outnumbered clean breaks by two to one. Further to that both of the declines in 2010 and 2011 were preceded by a test of the 200 DMA followed by a strong bounce before the main summer decline:
