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.

Oh, I See

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This morning, I was delighted to see the screen covered in red. A Sloper made the snarky remark that me declaration of my shortness would surely mark the bottom. Well, irked as I was by the rude comment, he turns out to be right, although, to the credit of my stock picks, I’m only down 0.3% in the face of a giant rally (particularly cool since I’m very leveraged).

My annoyance at the market’s sudden reversal was initially mixed with confusion, until I saw………..THIS:

gartman

As long as this guy has media attention, I’m afraid the bear market doesn’t stand a chance.

Perfect Harmony

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Some of you know I don’t go in for a lot of television. Movies, I love, and there are some I’ve seen dozens of times. But my days tend to be wake up, work/family, go to bed, without any time allocated to plop myself in front of a television set.

Some weeks ago, however, I stumbled upon the Mad Men series, and I decided to watch an episode. I knew I was in trouble, because I really liked it, and there were 7 seasons of 13 episodes each. I watched every one of them, though, sometimes at the end of the day as a treat to myself, and sometimes while going through my charts.

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Think Pink

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Yesterday, for no particular reason, I fired up the original Henry Mancini Pink Panther theme. I was transported back to when I was a little kid and saw the movie on television. After the credits, I was tremendously disappointed to realize it wasn’t a full-length cartoon (back in the 70s, of course, the Pink Panther was a staple of Saturday morning cartoon shows). In any case, it’s a great song, and these must be some of the best titles ever created for any movie:

Jessie’s Girl

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You can usually tell how I’m feeling just by knowing what I have playing in the background in my home office. If I’m feeling excited and engaged about the markets, I’ll put on something like Saving Private Ryan. On the other hand, if I’m feeling dejected and depressed (98% of my life), I’ll play the 1966 documentary Salesman or the 1994 documentary Crumb.

I’ve mentioned Crumb many times here on Slope, since it is such a persistent favorite of mine (you can watch it for free by clicking here……..you’re welcome). I watched it again today (yep, depressed), and I took note, as I always do, of Jessie Crumb, Robert Crumb’s talented and artistic son from an earlier marriage. He always impressed me as handsome, articulate, and incredibly well-adjusted considering what a messed-up father he had.

Jessie is on the left, next to Uncle Maxon and father Robert

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