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.

Who Feels the Sting

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Now that the massive new tax bill has passed, I thought I’d do a little experiment with a spreadsheet to see how a hypothetical Silicon Valley, California earner might be affected. I was sure his tax bill would be higher, but I am surprised at how much higher.I wouldn’t be surprised if some people decided not to stay in their homes since their tax bite is so substantial.

I will preface this by saying I’m not a tax expert, but I’ve got a pretty good understanding of taxes, and I put together a deliberately simplistic spreadsheet for this experiment. And while it may be simplistic, it still makes a powerful point, and the tiny amount of rounding error for an actual tax form won’t change the conclusion. (more…)

Return To Santa, Address Unknown

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I’m definitely in a holiday mood this week. That’s not really due to declining workload, by the time I finish today I’ll have published between 55 and 60 charts and three videos, but nonetheless the holidays are in the air and I’m feeling festive.

Santa has been AWOL for a couple of days on the indices though, and while I’m expecting this to resolve up into high retests we are starting to run a little short of time this week. Intraday Video – Update on ES, NQ and TF:

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2017 For the Bears

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As some of you may recall, when our man Gartman was asked this question, he had this response:

surprising

I would offer up a different answer myself – – maybe “blows” or “sucks out loud”. Something along those lines. Because, as you’ve seen, this hasn’t been just a bullish year; it’s been a never-before-seen, unprecedented, all-records-broken kind of year,with things like 12 up months in a row (never happened before).

I won’t bother digging up all the other ‘never happened before’ items, but they’re there. This is nicely illustrated with the bearish fund symbol HDGE: (more…)