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.

Worst. Spam. Ever.

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Like the rest of you, I get spam on a daily basis, and sometimes it’s so painfully obvious as to be funny. For instance, I just got this in my inbox:

0702-warning

So I’m assuming these spammers actually want people to (a) open the email and (b) click on whatever link they provide. So right away, they’ve done a poor job, because Apple isn’t going to have apple_Support in the From field, and they’re not going to have an all-lowercase “warning” (including, God forbid, putting the name Apple in lowercase). But let’s just say someone was blinkered enough to want to check it out: (more…)

Brazil Sinkage

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Just about the only major equity ETF that I’ve been comfortable shorting has been Brazil (symbol EWZ). All eyes are on Brazil now, obviously (sort of like all eyes were on China in the summer of 2008 for the Olympics), and who knows how much of the run-up with Brazil was related to World Cup fever, but the chart is showing far more weakness than what you’d expect, given the insane strength of world markets. We’ve been in about a ten dollar range for the past fourteen months on this instrument, and we’re still very much on the high end of that range.

0702-ewz

 

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