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.

Maybe Too Big To Fail…

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…But certainly not too big to short.  Here’s a weekly chart of XLF highlighting the peak to trough corrections following the weekly overbought readings going back to 2007.

Zooming into the daily charts, let’s just focus on the top 5 holdings of XLF, as they comprise nearly 37% of the holdings in that widely held financial ETF.  As noted on the charts, Berkshire Hathaway cl. B, which is the largest component of XLF, is comprised of nearly a 20% stake in Wells Fargo Corp, which is also the third largest component of XLF.  Therefore, WFC is definitely one to keep on your radar.

It Fits on One Screen Now

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Well, I’ve trimmed my positions back to a paltry 54, and I’m only 57% committed with no large shorts at all except for FXE (entered earlier today). I have 33 winners and 21 losers at the moment, and overall my current positions are in the green. I had peaked at about 105% commitment earlier this week with 90 positions. Now all my positions fit on a screen without the need to scroll.

I came into the day long a variety of precious metals items (ABX, GG, SLV) and dumped them at a profit right at the open. My big winner today was my IBM short, and my stinkers were my FXY long and my CMG short. As of this writing, I am down 0.80% on the day versus the market up 0.88%, so it’s not too terrible. (more…)

The Inexplicable Fajita

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First off, I’ve been following the events with respect to MIT and Boston last night and today; it is terribly tragic that an officer was gunned down by one of these two maniacs (who is dead now himself; at least we’ll save the expense of a trail). As of this writing, I think they’ve got the 2nd guy, or else they are very close to doing so. Hurrah for effective investigation and law enforcement! Hats off to all involved, and best wishes to all those in the Boston area who have been having to deal with this tension and aftershock.

On a much less interesting note………..I obviously took it right up the avocado on my CMG short and puts. The short loss was small, but the put loss, percentage wise, was obviously substantial. I’m not going to touch this thing again until it closes its gap. It’s a monster.

0419-CMG