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.
Draghi Queen
The bureaucratic touch-hole below tried to ruin my day, but he failed. I cancelled all 99 of my stops before the opening bell and, one by one, carefully examined each stock to re-assert a good stop price (which in virtually all cases was no different than before). My stock picks are doing so well that in spite of being completely short, I am a saucy combination of (a) fine; and (b) dandy.
Draghi thought his jaw-flapping would kill guys like me, but the bears will win the war after losing every battle. Bite me, Mario.
Ozymandias Speaks (by Springheel Jack)
Draghi made an impressive announcement this morning that the Euro is irreversible and, in effect, that the ECB will do whatever it takes to save the Euro. Both EURUSD and ES have spiked up impressively this morning on the strength of that. Now this won't be the first time in history that some European has made grandiose statement that didn't stand the test of time, many will recall that a past German leader made not dissimilar statements in the 1930s that didn't work out, but be that as it may, in the short term this looks impressive.
In honor of Draghi's bold statement I am dusting off one of my favorite poems by Shelley to share with you this morning:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Why did this particular poem spring to mind? Who can say? On to the markets.
My Options and Your Ideas
Greetings again from the Stanford Dive Center. My devotion to this blog knows no borders.
I'll mention as an aside that, as we approach August, it still hasn't been hot enough for me to open up our swimming pool at home. It seems the SF Bay Area is the only part of the country that has avoided heat this year. I don't miss it. If God deemed the temperature never go above 72, I'd be fine with that.
Anyway. I'll make my final post of the day about two topics: (1) my put positions; (2) SocialTrade ideas.
Readers who have been around a while know that I only dusted off my options account early in April. I had quick success with it, putting together a 70% profit in the span of something like six weeks. It's been languishing since then, slopping between about a 40% and 50% gain (e.g. I gave back some of my profits).
Predicting Action From First Hour Part 3 (by Ryan Mallory)
Today's market scenario that I want to discuss is one that you've probably heard me warn about in the past in either various posts or in our chat room, but nonetheless, they end up usually being some of the worst trading sessions for the bulls, mainly because it comes completely by surprise.
So let's just jump right in it, what-do-ya-say?
The situation is this – you'll see the market open sightly down or slightly up, either way it doesn't really matter, but preferably, it tends to occur most when it's slightly down.
– After the open, it spends 15-30 minutes in positive territory. This gives the bulls the impression that the bears are giving up the battle early on and the bulls will lay on some new long positions.
- This initial move doesn't usually exceed 8 or so points on the S&P. If it does then the behavior falls into some other category.
- Then all of a sudden (still within the 1st hour of trading usually) the market will pullback… nice and steadily, not causing much alarm.
- But the it doesn't stop, and then you'll see it break the morning lows from the first hour of trading. Once that happens button down the hatches and get ready for an unexpected fight.
The Result: A solid day of non-stop selling – often leading to 2-3% sell-offs in the market…and I'm not kidding, it gets ugly. There usually is very little in the way of a bounce or relief rally intraday. If you don't get out of your longs when your stops hit, you're going to take a royal beating for it. And to be completely honest, I don't know what it is that causes the melt-down as I described… it just does, and sometimes that's all you need to know when trading the markets.
