Another morning, another lifetime NASDAQ high, since, ya know, Tesla and Amazon are such bargains and all:
Divided Court
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.
I Need to PPP
You’ve probably read that on Monday the SBA released all the data related to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Everyone who got under $150,000 in loans was anonymous, while all those $150,000 and over were named. (Side Note: just to show how psychotic I am, I stayed up Monday night and put this together of all the Palo Alto PPP recipients. Enjoy).
Even though this program was ostensibly to help out small businesses, quite a number of the firms served are relatively larger, public companies. I have been sifting through the monstrous amount of data, and it’s quite fascinating. For instance, I found 1,351 different companies in my little town of Palo Alto received PPP loans. Only 50,000 people live here in the first place!
Anyway, I put together a list of the largest public companies that got PPP loans, which is the downloadable text file below. You can use this in conjunction with the SlopeCharts import function if you’d like to check out the charts of the firms that saw a need to get an emergency loan.
Phase 1 Compliance
Following Trump’s election win, I read two books to better understand him and his behavior: Games of Strategy: Theory and Application and The Art of the Deal. The game theory book was intended to understand how Trump thinks. However, he is extremely volatile and that makes it difficult to predict his behavior thus it was difficult to apply theories to his decision making. The Art of the Deal, however, was much more insightful. In an old email I characterized him as:
“He (Trump) is a winner. Looking strong is important. He’s also incredibly sneaky and untrustworthy (whatever it takes to win…)…In other words Trump uses last minute tactics to: A) strengthen his position and B) ensure his position is not weakened…As an options trader he’s a wing buyer that bullies the market to make his position in the money.”
(more…)Half the Gold Reserves
Almost half of the global gold reserves are controlled by just 10 countries and institutions, according to a new study. The study reveals that the U.S. is far ahead of other countries in terms of gold reserves, even well above countries like Russia, whose central bank has been a buyer of gold for quite some time.
Buy Shares reports 49.37% of global gold reserves are held by nine countries and the International Monetary Fund. Total global gold reserves amount to about 1.85 billion ounces, and the top 10 countries and institutions are holding about 913.29 million ounces.
The U.S. is in first place with 286.87 million ounces, amounting to 15.5% of global gold reserves. Germany is in second place with 188.63 million ounces of the yellow metal, or 6.4% of the total supply.
(more…)Sentiment and 11/3
Preface from Tim: I want it made clear at the outset that I did not write this post. Most Slope posts are by me, but some come in through outside contributors, which I appreciate. I just don’t want anyone thinking I’ve backpedaled on my pledge to not write about politics myself. I haven’t. Anyway, here we go……….
Early polls combined with current news sentiment indicate Joe Biden is now the favourite in the presidential race.
Joe Biden is increasingly looking like the clear favourite to win the next U.S. presidential election. Biden has led since polling began, but he has widened this lead following Trump’s perceived mishandling of both the coronavirus pandemic and the public outcry over the death of George Floyd.
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