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.

I Have a Theory (by BKudla)

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I am sure it is not unique, but worth sharing nonetheless.  My view is the Federal government is desperate to get the stock market back to being the tax revenue engine it was under Bill Clinton.

Incomes are flat, and national income is not going to be growing anytime soon. They have a problem; how do they goose the stock market and yet control inflation in food and energy.  Their answer has been suppression.

First is was lowering interest rates, then massive selling of interest rate swaps, then massive selling of volatility futures, and massive selling of alternative investments like gold and silver, and probably energy too.

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How Dumb

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I have written many times here on Slope about my distaste for the for-profit education industry. As I’ve said in the past, the business model is simple:

(a) trick poor saps who are unemployed and watching TV at home into thinking that an “education” from thus-and-such organization will make them profoundly desirable to employers;

(b) extract cash from the nimrods of the US Federal Government into bankrolling the “education” so that “workers” can be “retrained” for the “economy” so they can go get “jobs”;

(c) wash your hands of the entire affair when the aforementioned sap graduates with his phony-baloney degree, fails to get a job, is unable to pay the student debt, and leaves you and me (the honest, hardworking taxpayers) holding the bag.

It’s a scam, and it’s an exploitation of the ignorant as well as the rest of the American public. Indeed, the scam is so screamingly obvious that over the past couple of years, even the bozos in our government have finally realized that they are being subjected to lubricant-free rape, so they aren’t shelling out as much cash anymore. Thus, fine institutions like DeVry, Phoenix, and ITT Educational Institute have been withering away.

As far as ITT (symbol ESI) has fallen, it’s down nearly another 20% today, thus making its loss over the past few years something close to 90%. During the past few weeks, I guess some folks figured the stock had bottomed and gobbled it up. Oh, well. Firm support for stocks in this industry is at $0.00.

0107-esi

Facebook Has Legs

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The laughingstock of IPO-land from last year looks like it's shaping up to be a winner for the bulls. Volume is strengthening, and the IPO is becoming a distant memory. It still has a long way to go before all buyers are safely in the green, but let's face it, Facebook is a virtual monopoly in the world of social networking, and it's got a very strong management team. As long as it stays above 25.14, the stock is on a constructive path higher.

1107-FB

Apple Continues to Act as NASDAQ Millstone

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The first nine months of last year, AAPL was every bull's best friend. The path to $1,000/share seemed inevitable. Ever since then, however, AAPL has been stinking up the joint, and even with the latest mega-rally, fueled by patented retard-o-power, the Cupertino company refuses to participate. A break below $500 would accelerate the trajectory to my long-held target of about $440.

0107-AAPL