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.

Financial Services Industry Eats Clients

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By Biiwii

Ref: Why the big broker behind your financial adviser might be working against you

Tell me, which of them (the big brokers and investment houses) warned anyone about it being time to sell in 2000, or in 2007? There are exceptions out there, especially in smaller boutique style shops. But generally speaking, this thing we call Wall Street (big firms and the media that is their propaganda arm) exists to sell people the dream, then mark it up, front run it (in one way or another, legally or otherwise) extract fees from it and ultimately fleece it on the way down again (as regular people puke a tanking market and pay trading commissions for the privilege).

Here I cue up the old story about when I bought my first and only BMW (it was fine, but really it was not me) back in 2002. The deal was done and I sat with the business manager to finalize the transaction. He was a kid who had been fired from Merrill Lynch not 2 years earlier for keeping his clients in cash and totally safe at the market top. Problem was, he was not turning tricks, err I mean commissions for Merrill. All done.

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Peak Fed

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By Biiwii

clowncarWhile we’re on the subject of Mr. Bullard, the opening segment from this week’s NFTRH (#335) had a little fun with the Fed. Serious multi-market and economic analysis came later, but sometimes you just need to shake your head in awe and wonder.

Peak Fed

The Fed is important because millions of market participants believe it is important and a critical mass of people are under the illusion that its policies have put the “Great Recession” in the past and laid a path for a sustainably good economy going forward. In short, confidence in the Fed has never been more pervasive as it reaps the reward (the respect and confidence of the majority) for a job well done.

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USD, Economy & Policy

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Excerpted from the March 15 edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 334:

As the title suggests I want to talk more and chart a little less this week. We do so much charting and parameter management that I think we are in no danger of falling behind the curve in those areas. The same goes for the indicators and sentiment tools we use. It is all still there, available and ready for use at the drop of a hat.

As for economic data and projections, that too has been an area that in my opinion we have been on top of. Going back to the early 2013 Semiconductor ramp up right on through late 2014’s projections for European exporters due to currency dynamics, we have been on the job and things have been generally according to plans.

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Gold Sucks!

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By Biiwii

Ben Kramer-Miller, a fundamental gold stock analyst who I keep an eye on, recently had an article at SeekingAlpha called Gold’s Bull Run Has Not Yet Begun. I remember taking note of the title when it came out, but as is usually the case I did not have the time, nor the inclination to read it. I like to keep my own thoughts square and balanced and don’t need other peoples’ thoughts on gold clouding my own.

But as I was fooling around over at the St. Louis Fed’s website (it is recommended that geeks register for a free account) doing the following charts I remembered ‘oh jeez, I think somebody’s already on this topic’. So I checked it out and sure enough he did gold vs. the Monetary Base using a graphic from the also-recommended MacroTrends website. Anyway, preamble behind us we move on…

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Employment, the Economy & Interest Rates

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In light of the positive February Employment report NFTRH 333 opened up with some discussion of the details (the devil after all, is in those details)…

Employment, the Economy & Interest Rates

The February Employment report was a strong +295,000 with unemployment dropping to 5.5%. In Friday’s Market Notes update we highlighted that per BLS this was a services-driven report as the leading edge of the economy, the smaller but key manufacturing and industrial sectors, have begun to decelerate (notably in forward-looking ‘New Orders’).

From FloatingPath.com (markups mine) we see the breakdown…

payrolls.fp

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