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.

The End of Invention

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I retired when I was thirty-eight years old.

Well, not really. To my mind, “retired” means I stopped working, and I certainly didn’t do that. My work means a tremendous amount to me. Being idle isn’t in my blood. I am reminded of a quote I cited from a blog post I did back in the days when I used to do really amazing posts…..

Finally and above all else, he was marvelously alive; and mankind, dreading boredom even more than anxieties, is grateful to those who make life throb with a swifter, stronger beat

What I mean by my “retirement” was that I was financially independent. I had, single-handedly, Carl Clowngone from being pushed out into the world at the age of 17 without any financial support to having the choice to never need to work work again.

As I say, though, not working isn’t really my thing. On the contrary, I think my desire to work and create exists in such abundance as to make me miserable, because if I’m not actively creating, I am very unhappy. I find myself in that state quite a bit.

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“Protection Will Lead to Great Prosperity”

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A slightly modified version of the opening segment of this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 431…

After being mostly off the grid on Friday, I listened to the Trump inauguration speech on Saturday morning. While I have lots of thoughts and opinions, I want to focus on an item where I am qualified; namely my former area of expertise as someone who was in essence told by the media over and over again “you don’t exist”, while the consumerist, financialized and globalized economy flourished. By “you” I of course mean me, an owner of a small American manufacturing business. My area of focus from the speech…

“We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has dissipated over the horizon. One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores with not even a thought about the millions and millions of American workers that were left behind. The wealth of the middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world. But that is the past and now we are looking only to the future.

We assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital and in every hall of power. From this day forward a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward it’s going to be ‘America first… America first… America first’! (more…)

Small Cap Failure

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I’m actually pretty psyched about the new Trump presidency. I think he’s going to screw things up so royally, so massively, so completely, that my long-held dream of stocks going down for more than 12 minutes may actually be realized. Of course, as I’m typing this, we’re getting that ridiculous end-of-day fight-back, but I’ll take any weakness I can get.

Below is just a tiny start, but every little splinter in the woodwork helps. Suffice it to say, the poor souls who have been cheering this fellow on are going to be stabbed in the back by the same gent. Prepare for absolute mayhem in the 2018 congressional elections. We are living in an exciting moment of world history, day by day, and I think it’s going to get progressively more interesting.

0123-rut

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The Triangle on SPX

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One characteristic feature of the SPX tape over the last few months has been the tendency for the tape to just get lost in space chopping sideways for extended periods. Today is day thirteen of the current range-bound doldrums, and looking back on the others they all resolved into a break down of whatever size, sometimes after a high retest. That’s not encouraging for seeing SPX break much over the current all time high. SPX daily chart:

170121 SPX Daily

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Crude-cial Support

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It seems the world is maybe starting to get a little worried about the new direction of our once-great republic, as quotes have been red pretty much since trading opened on Sunday. Nothing dramatic, of course……..that type of thing isn’t allowed anymore. But at least the right color.

What I’m watching most closely is crude oil, which has been stuck in an ungodly boring range since December freakin’ First. Support is at 51.59 on the front month; if we can break that (miracle of miracles), we can really start to see some downside action on all these energy shorts.

0123-crude

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