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.

Heaven Seventeen

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One of my favorite comics, the late, great Gilbert Gottfried (not the late, great Hannibal Lecter you’ve heard so much about this week) often said his secret fantasy was that he’d be backstage the club, waiting to go on, and the club’s owner would come back and tell him there had been a flood and, here’s your check, you can go home. I’m afraid in recent weeks that’s precisely how I’ve been feeling, which is utterly uncharacteristic of my entire life. That feeling had better change soon. In the span of just four weeks. from April 19 to May 17, the markets have all exploded to lifetime highs, with the /NQ alone adding about 1,800 points. That’s more than ten percent. In four weeks.

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Bloody Nose

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Over a period of many years, what percentage of days is the stock market up versus down? Any guesses? Given what we’ve seen over the past decade, my intuition is something like 95% to 5%, although lately more like 100% to 0%. The truth is actually 54% to 46%, which I know is very hard to believe, but that’s what the data says.

This month (the ostensible “Sell in May and Go Away” era) the market goes up every single tic. We are now, as you well know, at levels never seen before in human history across the board.

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The Latest Bungle

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OK, time for some self-flagellation. Let me set the scene: I was at Philz Coffee this morning, right at the opening bell and away from my computers (which is rather unusual). I was watching my positions, and the one that was really bugging me was Netflix (NFLX) which had climbed all night. I had September puts on it, and it was really going the wrong way. I tried to read the paper, but I couldn’t wait to get back to my machine and get the hell out of my puts, so I left. The moment I got home, I dumped my position at a loss. I think you know where this is going, because I’ve marked with an arrow the moment I dumped them:

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