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.

Pichai Cream & Sugar

By -

Surely you’ve read by now that Google is going to can 12,000 people. Incredibly, that is a mere 6% of its worldwide workforce. I have no idea what these people do. Honest to God, Google to trim down to 500 people total, and virtually no one would be able to tell the difference. Sure, new product development would slow to almost nothing, but I’m sure we could all live without Google Wave or anything else they dreamed up.

Looking at the chart below, Alphabet’s wipeout was stopped hard at its life-long ascending trendline. On the other hand, those red circles show the steady beat-down of lower highs. I suspect this rally is over as of just about………….now.

Market Thesis 2023 (by Xerxes)

By -

I’ll get this out of the way and say this year has not started out as I’d hoped. I was hoping for this month to begin the next large downturn, on the cusp of which seems to be never-ending. I have been bearish since early last year, which served me well earlier on in 2022 in the broad market and helped me to get into my TSLA short last year. But something is definitely off about this market now.

We can’t seem to get a consistent rally to break upwards nor a consistent downtrend again to get to capitulation and end this bear market. I have had this thesis early last year regarding the mentality of the overall market, how everyone was truly addicted to the free money we have had for the past 13 years. I have also made the comparison of Jerome Powell to an all-powerful drug dealer providing this drug so willingly for so long. But despite his unwavering commentary that they are going to continue raising rates, the market seems to refuse to believe it. In fact, the market seems to be totally obsessive about it.

(more…)