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.

Dash for Slash

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I’ve been involved in financial data for my entire adult life, and I’m well acquainted with its many peculiarities. One of the key ones is symbology, which varies from market to market, and is especially insane in the world of commodities (and don’t even get me started on futures options).

SlopeCharts is not immune to these vagaries, and until now, it was impossible to create a custom symbol with any commodity data, because the futures charts begin with the slash (“/”) which also is obviously the symbol we all use as the division sign. If you wanted to chart the S&P 500 futures versus the long-term continuous gold contract, you might have tried to enter /ES//GC (that is, /ES divided by /GC), and it would have just barfed all over the place.

But those days are over! Now you can make use of futures symbols (well, Diamond members can, since they have access) to your heart’s content. I thought I’d share a few example charts to illustrate this in action. For you Gold/Diamond premium members, please note I’ve added these charts to the Pairs shared watch list.

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Finance Theory Sheds A Light On Stock Prices

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Asking what to expect from stocks may seem like a silly question.  After all, it depends on whose expectations we are talking about.  I am be bullish on stocks while you are bearish.  Although that is true, there is a finance theory answer that looks at the question from the standpoint of the overall market, not any particular investor.  That is a good place to start.

According to finance theory, stocks are priced so that they offer investors a fair rate of return for holding them.  For the market as a whole, say the S&P 500 index, decades of research has led to the conclusion that a fair risk-adjusted return is approximately equal to the risk-free rate, taken to be the yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds, plus 5.5 percentage points.  Currently, the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds is 0.75%, so the theory implies that a fair expected return on the market index is 6.25%.  For individuals stocks, or sectors of the market, it may be somewhat more or less depending upon the risk of the specific investment.

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Farewell Ceremony

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I received the following from Dutch’s daughter, who asked me to share it:

Hi Tim,

I would first like to start off by thanking you and the community here on Slope. All of the people who reached out to extend their condolences and lend me support and advice has helped me deal with this difficult time. I am ever grateful and it has had more worth than my Dad’s purported net worth. I don’t care what my Dad has or didn’t have whatever it turns out to be. Having all of you as friends and colleagues made him the richest person in the world.

When i first found you guys it was purely by accident while searching to see where one of my Dad’s email addresses went. Dutch@WeJustTrade.com lead to a posting on Slope about my Dad’s passing. When i clicked on it I never imagined what i would find. You have something really special Tim and I can see why my Dad devoted so much time there. He looked forward to putting SlopeFest together and the past few years it was happiest times for him probably coming in close to it was the birth of my son Jaxson Roy who was there last Grandchild my Dad had.

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