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.

Bad Czech

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Well, Friday could have been a really terrific day, but it was fairly well trashed.

No, the market didn’t do the damage. The market was just fine (indeed, as usual, the only complaint I’ve got about my trading is taking profits far too early, particularly with my options positions – – – – my options ideas have been doing great). It was a bad experience here in Prague.

The plan for the day was simple: have a really nice breakfast, go up to the Prague castle (a short ride from here), and then have me get back into my pseudo home office in our suite by 3:30 p.m. to tackle an exciting trading day.

The breakfast went according to plan, but then it was time to head to the castle. I suggested we take the city tram, which is an electric street car that goes all around the major parts of the city. My wife has never been so keen on public transportation (sometimes sketchy riders; plenty of b.o.) but I prevailed upon everyone to really participate in city life, be a sport, and just hop on the tram.

Big mistake. (more…)

The Bears’ Escalator

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If there’s one fund that neatly captures the suckitude of being a bear the past 2.5 years, it is the Ranger Equity Bear ETF. It describes itself thusly: “The investment seeks capital appreciation through short sales of domestically traded equity securities. The Sub-Advisor seeks to achieve the fund’s investment objective by short selling a portfolio of liquid mid- and large-cap U.S. exchange-traded equity securities, The Sub-Advisor implements a bottom-up, fundamental, research driven security selection process that seeks to identify securities with low earnings quality or aggressive accounting that may tend to mask operational deterioration and bolster the reported earnings per share over a short time period.”

Well, the bottom-up, fundamental, research-driven security selection produces results like those below, which is no surprise, in a centrally-planned economy like ours (and take note, this is not a leveraged fund!) The brief lifts in 2011 and 2012 have given way to a steady descent, topped off nicely by today’s lifetime low, as Yellen has her tiny hands around the market’s neck.

0701-hdge

 

A Change in Tone

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“Well, you see Willard . . . In this war, things get confused out there, power, ideals, the old morality, practical military necessity. But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be god. Because there’s a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have one. Walter Kurtz has reached his. And very obviously, he has gone insane.”

(more…)