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.

Mold Action

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Whenever we get a decent selloff in the market, I brace myself for the next intervention – – because we all know that’s what’s coming. Although it doesn’t constitute any kind of announcement, word from the meeting of the Powers That Be over the weekend was:

1012-boldaction

So, let’s get this straight:

+ Q.E. isn’t even done yet; its cessation is still forthcoming this month;

+ The market was at the highest point in human history only a few weeks ago, and it has dropped a single-digit percentage point since then;

+ The world’s central banks have already printed up $12 trillion in funny money to artificially prop up equity markets for their rich buddies

And so they’re calling for………..bold action??? You’ll excuse me if I feel like retching.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – this time with the power of a boldface font – there will come a day that a big announcement is made, and the markets will actually wilt instead of rally. It is at that point you know it’s game-over for these clowns, and asset classes from A to Z are collectively headed for the toilet.

Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy

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I hadn’t done any options trading for a while, but a few months ago, I dusted off my options account, put some money into it, and started trading it. The past few weeks have been particularly good to me, with the account up about 100%, but along the way (particularly the most recent week), I left a ton of money on the table.

There was one particular issue that left an impression on me: a NASDAQ put. Now, most of my options trading (which is brain-dead simple: buying puts on stocks that I think are going to fall and whose expiration is several months out) is focused on individual issues, not indexes. But on October 3, I decided to buy the $4050 put on the NDX. (more…)