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.

How to Choose Your Own Probability of Success

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Quick Options Primer

I am often asked about how I come up with the probability of success percentage that I refer to in many of my reports and here on the blog.

For those of you new to the blog, I currently trade two options strategies (I hope to add a few more in the coming months). One of my strategies is a directional strategy using short-term overbought/oversold measures based on my high-probability, mean-reversion indicator. I play the strategy by using straight calls and puts.

The other strategy, and indeed my favorite, is the Theta Driver strategy where I sell out-of-the-money vertical spreads with a high probability of success.

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Reversion to the Mean?

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We have witnessed a long, steady grind higher since 2012 began.

It was more of the same this week. The low volume grind shows little conviction, but continues to amaze even the most bullish of market participants.

Why?

Because we have only seen a daily pullback of 0.73% since the year began. That’s right, 33 days without a 1% pullback. That is the 13th longest streak since 1928.

The Nasdaq has been the leader among the benchmarks as it has advanced over 13% since the beginning of the year. Of course, with Apple making up roughly 20% of the Nasdaq 100 index, it is no surprise to see such a huge return in such a short period of time.

When the largest company in the world, with a market cap almost $100 billion more than the second largest company in the world Exxon,  gains 25% in barely a month you should expect to see a rise in the indexes.

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Are You Ready for a Pullback? (by Andy Crowder)

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It was an amazing day in the market if you are a bear. Not because the decline was anything to write home about, but because the latest daily trend was broken.

The trend – open lower, close higher.

Today’s price action  - open higher, close lower.

Of course, we will need some bearish confirmation over the next several trading days, but I think with the current amount of lopsided bearish indicators in the market the probability of a continued mover is high.

Almost every indicator I follow is now in a bearish state and there are more notable bearish stats from sentiment analyst Jason Goepfert to add to the list

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Traders Rejoice?

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Nope.

Yet again, the bears stumbled mightily during the final hour of trading.

As Jason Goepfert of Sentimentrader.com stated, “The late-day rebound saved the indexes from suffering what could have turned into a relatively large down day.  That marks day #30 so far this year without a 1% down day, the 14th-longest streak since 1928.”

It is expiration week, so moves like today’s are to be expected, but the price action today was indicative of the last several weeks – down at the open rally towards the close.

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One More Time – Bulls Look Ripe

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NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks had their worst day of the year Friday after Greece hit a roadblock on its way to a critical bailout.

Seriously, with a headline like Stocks fall sharply as Greek deal is held up you would think that the Dow just lost 300-500 points. Nope, just a paltry 0.71%. Yes, let me repeat 0.73%.

The worst day over the past 2 ½ months has been 0.73%. Okay, so with that being said, in which direction do you suppose the market will move  over the short to intermediate-term move? Would you say the risk is now to the upside? Do you think probability lies with the bulls or bears after an average years worth of market gains in just 28 trading days?

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