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.

Has The Market Crash Been Put On Hold Again?

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By Avi Gilburt, ElliottWaveTrader.net

Last weekend, I wrote an article entitled “The Market Is Going To Crash.” The response to that article garnered over 55,000 hits on Seeking Alpha, which is about 4-5 times the reads that I normally get on a stock market update.

This gives me anecdotal insight into where the overall sentiment is in the market today. It seems most investors are leaning quite bearish, and are looking for articles that support their own bearish bias.

And, as I noted last weekend, I am sorry to disappoint all of you who have a bearish bias. You see, the market is likely going to be heading over 3000, and potentially even over the next 12 months.

While I am sure you were taken in with the common expectation that the President’s abandoning the Iranian deal was going to tank the market, it seems the market never got that memo. Yes, we have yet another reason the market has ignored while it continued to climb higher. At this point, you would think that investors would be used to this if they have been paying attention in 2016 and 2017.

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The Ceaseless Ascent

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Well, I’m glad the site is doing so well, because the markets over the past week have made me feel pretty lousy. It’s nice to at least have Slope humming along to comfort me.

I’d like to offer the following off-the-wall musings as a very different take on the market. It’s a disposition that many, many people share, and perhaps it would help me get in sync with the rest of the planet to actually type what everyone else is thinking. I submit this to be neither facetious nor wry. So here goes.

(1) Just as humanity as made sufficient advancements in technology to, for example, feed everyone on the planet, so, too, have we reached a sophistication in knowledge and financial management rendering bear markets permanently extinct. Yes, there will be occasional dips from time to time (see green tints), but these will swiftly be pushed aside by a new ascent. If a solid decade of evidence isn’t enough, I’m not sure what is.

upconstant (more…)

A Fearsome Loss!

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After the market closed today (Monday), I saw on my news feed that Verifone Systems (PAY) had agreed to be acquired at a huge premium to its closing price, about 50% higher than the market. That’s not especially interesting news to anyone that doesn’t have a position in the stock, but I do. And it’s a short position. And that, as you might guess, is not a good thing.

I am sharing this bit of bad news as an object lesson in risk management, however. Because after I found this out, I asked myself the following questions and gave myself the following answers: (more…)