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.
Today (that is, Tuesday) was pretty damaging for any bears left out there. Everyone was bracing themselves for the Wednesday Fed meeting, but there was a one-two punch early on Tuesday that was unexpected in its scope: first, the Draghi capitulation, and second, the Trump-Xi meeting tweet.
A number of major cash indexes broke above medium-important resistance levels, putting more wind into the bullish boat sails. Here is the Dow Composite:
Rob Reid, whom I’ve mentioned here on Slope from time to time, has been a dear friend of mine since our childhood. He’s tremendously prolific on multiple fronts – – as an entrepreneur, an author, a podcaster, an investor – – and his latest creation, hot off the proverbial press, is below. I encourage you to check it out, since it is both fascinating and urgent.
One way to play for both a gain or loss in a stock is to buy a straddle. This involves buying a call and a put at the same time wherein a certain degree of gain or loss in a stock will result in profit, and if there is no or small movement in the stock’s price, there is a small loss that will increase with time. In addition the straddle does better in rising volatility, such as prior to earnings, and worse in pre-existing high volatility which is dropping.
Another strategy that can take advantage of a potential directional opinion, is to obtain a straddle with a mix of stock and options. One can use synthetics to achieve this.
(more…)We continue to push forward on brokerage integration, and Ameritrade and thinkorswim are done. As a finishing touch, we’ve added sortable columns to the positions screen. This provides a quick and easy way to fetch brokerage information and P&L information without bothering going to your brokerage site or application. You can just hang out on Slope!
I’ve been holding off messing around with Tesla, but the surge this morning was so strong, I went ahead and shorted it with a stop at 242. The green tint I’ve made is, I believe, a major topping pattern. The yellow tint is more of a buffer, so should we cross into it, I’ll wait until we get back up to the green. However, I’m not sure we’re going to get that far.
