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.

Jobs: The Movie

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Today I finally got around to watching the movie Jobs (the one starring Ashton Kutcher)0408-jobs

I confess I had hesitations about watching it at all. For one thing, I am far too close to the subject matter. I have studied Steve Jobs since 1982. Even in the late 1980s, he wasn’t a household name, and my roommate in college pronounced “Jobs” with a long O (as you would say the word “robes”), which drove me right up the tree. I was into Jobs two decades before it became really cool.

Having seen the movie, I can also attest to having met half the people that were featured in it. The entire topic of Apple – – its entire history from 1976 to present – – is something I know fairly deeply, so I knew I wouldn’t learn anything new from the movie, but I was concerned about how much it might irk me with inaccuracies. (more…)

Downside Protection For ADM

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In a post on Monday (“VXX Sucks”), our host Tim noted the double digit move in the VIX (though not in VXX, which has made longs’ money evaporate since inception) on the day. With volatility getting a mild bump, I thought I’d take a look at the hedging costs of a few widely-traded stocks trading near their 52-week highs. Agricultural powerhouse Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) was one that was relatively inexpensive to hedge. Here are two ways of doing that over the next several months. (more…)