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.

Pain-Free Debt

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Not a week goes by that the Federal Reserve doesn’t introduce some new multi-trillion dollar “emergency” package and shove it down the helpless throats of the public. Ever since 2008, I would wonder “how come this doesn’t seem to bother anyone?” It seem incongruous to me that the citizens of a nation would care so little about money-printing in such astronomical quantities.

Then, duh, I finally realized the answer this morning: it isn’t because John Q. Public doesn’t understand what’s going on (and he doesn’t). Instead, it’s because he doesn’t feel any pain from it. At least not directly. And at least not yet.

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Gold Stocks Show the Way

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[edit] It goes without saying that gold miners and the royalty companies that live off them will be shown to have been impaired like many other companies by the coming Q2 numbers due to shutdowns. An emailer questioned my view on this and it has been one of my personal caution points. Markets should be looking ahead, but during this euphoric sentiment release across broad markets maybe they’re overlooking some things. The other caution point is that a big bullish expression on the heels of Fed announcement is also a setup for short-term disappointment. So with respect to the daily chart below, maybe Friday’s gap will fill after all. But as noted in the article below notes “the gold stocks lead and their fundamentals and value proposition will have improved by leaps and bounds as we exit the COVID-19 global lock down”.

It’s a good Friday because I get to start my weekend work earlier. Many people temporarily have no weekends because they are huddled at home as one day bleeds into the next amid the global pandemic. Monday is Thursday is Saturday. Good Friday is Halloween is Festivus.

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