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.

A Call for Decorum

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With a week to go to the election, I wanted to share a few thoughts about the week ahead of us and how I’d like this community to comport itself.

Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”. Almost everyone here has a mask, in the respect that they are essentially anonymous. This can, at times, cause people to act out. I am guilty of this on occasion, although I think I’ve done much better lately.

Simply stated, let’s try to keep our passions private and the information we share to be helpful, interesting, and illuminating. No need for personal attacks. No need for chest thumping. No need for nastiness. I have privately written to some folks that were feeling particularly strongly, and their responses have been courteous and positive.

Emotions will be running hot. Let’s all double-down on our self control. After all, that’s a crucial skill for a trader, no matter what. I’ll try to lead by good example. We are about to move to a historical pivot point.

Don’t Count the Bears Out

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On Tuesday I talked about how you can improve virtually any system by filtering on ATR basis.

This is so obvious in retrospect, I can’t believe I didn’t notice this earlier in my trading career. High volatility and low volatility periods have completely different psychology, the same way trending and rangebound markets are driven by opposite psychology.

Basically, during decreasing volatility trending moves, counter trend setups are a negative edge.

But counter trend setups become viable again once ATR (as a proxy for volatility) reaches a historic low and then rises.

This is because volatility, once it starts falling, has a statistical tendency to continue falling until it reaches an extreme.

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Trumper Tantrum

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I think I’ve been doing quite a good job sidestepping politics, as I pledged to do months ago. This post is not a departure from that. Don’t let the title fool you. This is a thought exercise and not an attack on the guy.

There are a gazillion possibilities about what’s going to happen on November 3rd and, far more important, November 4th forward. I’d like us to consider one possibility and what it might mean for the market. And I want to stress again, since I know a few of you are just bonkers about the guy, this isn’t a dig on the current POTUS but is an attempt at an objective mental exercise.

Having laid out sufficient preambles, I’ll offer this possibility: let’s say Trump loses and loses bad enough that he doesn’t really fight it. Let’s just say it’s quite evident that it’s time to hang it up, and he’s a one-termer.

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Don’t Call It A Comeback

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Note from Tim: I was absolutely thrilled to get word from Scott a few days ago that he was returning to Slope! He has generously proposed contributing articles, which is terrific. During a rare international trip last August, Scott and I made arrangements to meet one another, but unfortunately we never connected. In any case, welcome back to the baddest bad-ass out there!

For those of you too young to remember me, allow me to re-introduce myself.

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The Dish Decision

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I offer you greetings, once again, from the empty, eerie parking garage of the Stanford Shopping Center. Once the bustling destination for vapid trophy wives and desperately insecure men, this shrine to consumerism has been unsullied by human feet for half a year, except those of myself and the inhuman feet of my dog pack.

As many decades as I’ve been doing this charting nonsense, I still marvel at the simple beauty of things such as role reversal. Support becomes resistance. Resistance becomes support. See see that here with the /RTY, which gave the horizontal line which I drew long ago the kind of respect it deserves.

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