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.

Beyond Implied Volatility

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Most “meme” stocks make sense, in the respect that the companies involved would have something to do with the interests of 19 year olds. For example, pot stocks (like ACB) were huge meme stocks before they got destroyed. And, more recently, Gamestop makes sense, because obviously 19 year olds spend their time sleeping, eating, and playing Call of Duty.

But the weirdest one is Bed Bath and Beyond, which is only relevant to these “traders’ since that’s where their moms go to buy throw pillows, scented candles, and dish towels. It has been on a tear lately, almost tripling in price in a matter of days.

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1929… Won’t Go Away

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I have been a long time user of analogs. I like looking to history to see how it echoes back against us, again and again. I have studied the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression at length. As a result, when I see patterns in today’s market, they sometimes remind me of patterns that I have seen before in markets of the past.

I had that experience again yesterday and today with the chart below. I recognized that SPY this year has been acting a lot like INDU acted in 1929, but on a slightly different timeframe. The 1929 chart shows roughly six weeks of trading action. The SPY chart shows all of 2022 thus far. History books can tell you what happened next.

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