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.

This Week: 4 C’s That Could Change The Financial World As We Know It. Again!

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Those 4 C’s are: Confirmation, Crisis, Contagion, Catastrophe.

What type of confirmation could send the financial markets into such turmoil it could rock the very bastions of finance as we now know it?

First: Scotland votes yes to leave the U.K. If this turns out to be so, it could send shock-waves throughout the markets that run the world. i.e., Forex or World currencies.

No one with any financial acumen can look seriously at the markets as they stand at the time of this writing, and seriously argue the markets are prepared for such a resolution happening this Thursday. (more…)

A Stroll Through Market History on FOMC Day

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We take the Way Back machine to a time of normalcy and plenty, in the 50’s when the stock market did okay but savers were paid (through T Bill yields) to do the most prudent thing people in a natural economy can do… save. Ever since 1980 the theme has been for the nation to eat its seed corn, with asset owners getting increasingly more portly in the process and savers nudged ever further out to the margin. The S&P 500 has sure got no complaints these days. It’s in lockstep with policy.

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FED Water-Boy Hilsenramp Carries the FOMC Gatorade

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Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal dove head first into the deep end of the interactive social media swimming pool. During their FOMC pregame show, they punctually trotted out Johnny Waterboy Hilsenrath via SpreeCast, the sparkling new-media darling interactive webcast platform, to serve up another fresh jug of spiked reinvigorating Gatorade to his favorite NY Stock Market team. (more…)