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.

The Time Of The Asterisk *

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One cliché that get’s bandied around more than any other today is, “Well, it’s different this time.” The problem with that statement is its ability to be both right and wrong for different reasons, while simultaneously being the exact phrase to sum things up. I’m beginning to think we’re trying to use words to put into context what we all understand when we see it displayed on paper or in text. The symbol * known as the asterisk.

Everything today seems to need an asterisk beside it. From baseball, to politics. Nothing, and I mean nothing seems to be able to stand true for what ever the reasons.

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Welcome, Spring Showers

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The first week of Q2 was a good one for me. I made a profit in my portfolio 4 out of the 5 days, and my little options account is up about 15% in the same timespan. Let the good times roll!

I was actually kind of pleased at the bounce we got on Friday, after the very weak opening. I’ve got many, many stocks I want to short at higher prices, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so. The break of the red trendline shown below is important, and a push back to its underbelly is going to make shorting easier than shooting bulls in a barrel.

0406-compq

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Sleeping in Seattle

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There are a couple of things that seem to make a difference in traffic to Slope: (a) the amount of new content; (b) the drama – particularly downward drama – of the market.

If I am running a normal pace of content (something like six or seven posts per day), and the market is pretty much not doing anything particularly interesting, traffic to the blog is breathtakingly steady. In spite of the many thousands of people that visit, and the tens of thousands of circumstances in their lives, human nature is, on the whole, incredibly consistent, and traffic moves up or down literally just a few tenths of a percentage point from day to day.

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