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.

FOMC: Crystal Ball Time

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By Biiwii

Let me gaze into my crystal ball, with the confidence of a genuine guru* and the vision of a mystical Swami. Sifting through my notes about leading indicators, low unemployment, but also cratering public confidence, I see… (not that you should give a damn what one faulty little participant sees)… but bear with me now as I render the great forecast…

I see the Federal Reserve folding again today, perhaps with some stern words imploring us to stay vigilant for a rate hike coming before year end. In this scenario another small chink in the armor of impenetrable post-2011 confidence in these clowns would be had.

clowncar, brought to you by FOMC

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The Horrible Hole

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I’ve had my fair share of horrible memories in life (hey, that’s a cheerful way to kick off a post, isn’t it?) but one that stands out as one of the worst was September 1, 2010. I’ve mentioned this date before, because it was a searing, horrible experience for me.

At the time, I was very, very aggressively short the market, and I (very naively) thought that, with interest rates at 0, there was nothing left for the Fed to do. Ummm – – wrong! As we all know, the Fed really has no limits as to what it can conjure up, and Bernanke unveiled a massive quantitative easing program. Trillions of dollars later, we all can plainly see that it didn’t work (although the man still gets paid a quarter million bucks to make a single boring speech), but at the time, it was just the tonic the stock market needed. (more…)