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.

Backtesting LIVE!

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I am very pleased to announce another exciting addition to the Slope portfolio of analytical tools, and this one is specifically for options traders out there. This one is a doozy, and it’s exclusively for Diamond members: Options Backtesting!

For those of you wanting to treat yourself to a holiday gift of a Diamond membership, I’ve got a surprise for you here – – it is an instant and permanent discount of nearly 40% from the normal price of membership. I very rarely do “sales” like this, but this will get you the Diamond membership for the price of Gold, so jump on it while it’s live!

Performing historical back-tests on options strategies is one of the most computing-intensive and complex tasks in the trading world. Through the Options Backtest Page, the Slope website provides an easy-to-use method to execute what is, behind the scenes, an exceptionally complex task with daily options data going back to 2007.

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Roll Over & Play Dead

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Here are some unusual charts: no drawn objects. No price bars. No volume bars. Nothing except three exponential moving averages (200, 100, 50). I picked these five equities because their EMA trio looks most prone to rolling over (you know: downward. Like the old days). The symbol and name of each company is in the upper-left, as always, and, as always, click on any chart for a huge version of it.

slopechart AAP
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Platinum Primed with Pressure

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One of the first things we learned about the fire truck was how to prime the pump. If the pump wasn’t primed, there would be no pressure, and thus, no delivery of water from tank, thru hose, to fire.

The experience was many years ago, as a volunteer firefighter living in a tiny rural town.

The firehouse, if one could call it that, was located in the alley right behind my house, and was a shed of a plywood building that was maybe – maybe – twenty inches wider than the truck. These days, fire trucks are easy-handlers. Not then. This truck had no automatic or power anything and was hard.to.handle. Because I lived so close to the truck [and got to it quickly/first], I was the driver on many calls.

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In Hot Water

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“We’ve got no hot water!”

Hoo boy. Yep. Plumbing. That’s on the Dad Duty Roster.

So there was no hot water on the second floor. And I had to figure out why. And I had to figure out how to get it fixed. And, believe it or not, this all ties back to my newfound obsession with Alan Watts. Naturally.

I should state early on that I’m not the handiest of handymen. I was the baby in my family, and I was never raised as a “man’s man.” I don’t know how to change the oil in a car. I can’t change a flat tire. And if something serious goes wrong at the house, I’m on Yelp in no time.

But I’m not totally helpless. I’m a problem-solver at heart. If I weren’t, there’s no way Slope would exist. Or Prophet, for that matter. These entities have been replete with problems, and solve them is my sworn duty. I hate the responsibility, although I’m glad for it after I fix whatever it is that needs to be cured.

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