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.

SPX 1440 Area Pivot Test (by Springheel Jack)

By -

Well that was a very strong trend day up yesterday after the ES descending triangle broke up. The ES pattern target was reached near the trading hours close so that pattern is no longer in play. Somewhat to my surprise SPX closed an impressive 8 points over the upper bollinger band and that's bullish, in the sense that yesterday's high was unlikely to be a major high, and a higher high should be expected. 

On the bigger picture though this close well above the bollinger bands has only been seen once before in 2012, and that was in the March final move up into the April 2012 high. That was also a move out of a bollinger band pinch on the daily chart. Of the the four closes well below the bollinger bands since the start of August last year, all preceded significant lows within five days, and only in August 2011 (also from a bollinger band pinch) did the move continue strongly after that close, with in that case two more trend days closing well below the bollinger bands as well:

(more…)

Once In A Blue Moon Stand (by phantomcapital)

By -

Very rarely do I take a
directional stand on the market.  In
today’s environment it seems like yesterday’s profit turns into tomorrow’s loss
more often than not.  Then there are days
like today that scream, “if you’re ever going to be a contrarian trader, now is
the time to do it.”  Multiyear
highs!  Gold!  Hope for August jobs!  Cue the financial media mania:

CNBC Genius

(more…)

What Am I Doing Day-Trading YELP Today? (by Ryan Mallory)

By -

As I figure, I probably have about a 60% chance that this trade isn’t going to work out. So why the heck would I even make this trade to begin with?

Because of the risk/reward that goes with making this trade.

You see, YELP has seen a surge of buying interest in recent days, going from the $17’s all the way into the $26’s. 

Today you have a huge market rally and YELP is down over 3% on the day. 

So my strategy is as follows

– Wait for an ideal risk scenario where either the stock has to bounce, or I get quickly stopped out. 

– Make the stop-loss where if the trade doesn’t work out, the minimum I lose is 4:1 to what I could’ve have made. 

– Because YELP is so volatile and a high-beta stock – this is very possible. 

Now let’s put it into practice.

– Bought YELP off of its 6-day upward trend-line (support)evil-yelp

– Bought near the previous lows of the day so that if it breaks those lows, I know immediately the stock is making a new leg down and that it is time to get out. 

– Entry therefore is at $24.68. 

– Stop-Loss is at $24.38 which gives me a maximum loss of 1.22%

– My Target is set at $25.91 (near break-even for the stock on the day), which gives me a target of 5% 

– Overall then my Reward to Risk is 4:1

– That means that this type of trade setup only  needs to work once out of four attempts for me to still make a profit off of it. That’s why with a likelihood of a 60% fail possibility, it is a risk i’m willing to take. 

And here’s the trade setup. Red = Stop, Blue = Entry and Green = Target as I described above

Yelp-Day-Trade

Be sure to check out Ryan’s Blog at SharePlanner.com