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.

The Influence of Fed Balance Sheet Growth

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First off, thanks to The Lone Ranger for inspiring this post in the first place.

Lone Ranger Fed Question

And now let’s begin…

Starting with the bird’s eye view, the chart below shows all available data on the FOMC’s operations going back to 2007 (for a more detailed explanation with chart of all the FOMC operations current to Apr 2020, check out this excellent post I found here).

Except for the period between 2015 and the end of 2019, virtually all of the market gains were concurrent with FOMC operations. I will focus in this post on the periods of high complacency as identified by extremely high levels of the 100SMA (20wk SMA) of the Equity Put/Call ratio. If you want to read those posts, the first is here and the second is here.

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Why Crypto is Better

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OK, confession time. I’ll admit it. I finally bought crypto last week. Never did it before until then. I bought Ethereum ($ETH).

Why didn’t I say anything? I suppose a superstitious belief that the millisecond after I said anything, it was go plunging to $0. But a bullish base is a bullish base, and it’s not accident that I’ve been marveling at the quality of the pattern. But there’s more to it than that.

slopechart ETH
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Karen Analysis (Part 2)

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Note from Tim. The following is kindly contributed by Buccaneer. The first part can be read here. I am not sure what preamble is required with respect to what I assume is an ongoing legal case, except to say that the words below are obviously a matter of personal opinion and none of these are offered as fact or conclusive findings: On Karen Bruton the Supertrader (KST) topic here’s my analysis about her case. (Links to SEC PDFs are here and here).

Unfortunately, the market had been moving up, and as you all know the adjustments to the Call side being tested can and do include selling Puts also. This works effectively if the volatility stays low and market keeps moving up or flattens out. But where you run into trouble is when this upward moving market suddenly dips with a big vol increase, which is exactly what happened with the Oct 2014 dip. So now Karen had sold many Puts at low vol in an up market, and they suddenly generated significant paper losses.

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Karen Analysis (Part 1)

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Note from Tim. The following is kindly contributed by Buccaneer. I am not sure what preamble is required with respect to what I assume is an ongoing legal case, except to say that the words below are obviously a matter of opinion and none of these are offered as fact or conclusive findings: On Karen Bruton the Supertrader (KST) topic here’s my analysis about her case. (Links to SEC PDFs are here and here).

According to the SEC’s complaint filed in federal court in Atlanta:
The two private hedge funds managed by Hope Advisers and Bruton – named Hope Investments LLC and HDB Investments LLC – have more than $175 million in net asset value.

https://youtu.be/cXy9HoWX0es
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