One decade. One decade has now elapsed between the fabled 666 bottom and now. Think about the world in March 2009. Obama was still finding his way around the White House. Facebook was a private company. Netflix was five bucks a share. And ZeroHedge was just a few weeks old.
And as a surprise to those who might consider me a die-hard permabear, I offer a post from that very day, March 6th, 2009, entitled Tim-Bull – –
This is not to say I’ve gone “all long”. I have, spread out among my accounts, 176 positions. 64 are long, 72 are short, and 40 are options (all of them puts). So on a position-count basis, I am more bear than bull. But on a cash basis, I’m more bull than bear, particularly since some of my long positions are well into the six figures.
176 positions. Good God Almighty. I forgot how crazy I was back in those days. That seems almost unfathomable to me.
I also did a post called Quick Hello in which I laid out my long positions. I’ve highlighted a few to show just how jaw-droppingly cheap they were back then.
Using the Woulda Shoulda Coulda page, I can bring high-tech into the wonderful world of self-flagellation. Here are what some of those “buys” did following my post……..
Ouch.
I don’t want to spend a lot of time getting sentimental. For one thing, I tend to reserve that for Slope’s birthday on March 29th (this year we turn 14!). For another, I make a daily habit of beating myself up over What Might Have Been and If Only You Did This-or-That Differently, that to put myself through a meat grinder here and now would feel………..redundant.
I will express, as I try to do, my undying gratitude to Slopers. Let’s face it, this place has historically been known as “the bear blog”, and based on what’s happened the past decade, a rational person might expect the place to have withered up and died many years ago.
On the contrary, Slope has flourished. It is bigger and better than ever, and the sheer number of tools and features on the site is actually superior to what I built with Prophet.net. So I’m terribly proud of the site, and I hope my efforts to pivot us away from “that blog for bears” to a full-fledged trader’s website has been apparent.
In honor of this peculiar anniversary, I am pleased to announce that, for NEW subscribers, annual subscriptions are back! You get two months free, plus you get a free, signed copy of my latest book, the Joy of Charting. So click here if you’d like to take advantage of this price discount and free book, and I raise my virtual champagne glass to many more years of Slope, no matter WHAT this market does!
