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.

Mass Media Dowgasm

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As I’ve been saying on a daily basis lately, breaking the old high of the Dow was the big, looming goal of TPTB and the MSM, and voila, they’ve done it. Naturally, the likes of Cramer are jizzing all over the airwaves right now, and any glance at CNBC.com or MarketWatch.com or any similar site shows gigantic headlines about The Big News.

0305-indu

 

Bernanke (and his albino helpmate Yellen) must be feeling awfully good about life right now.

So, Like, What’s My Strategy?

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Here are some snippets from an interview from New Yorker magazine with the queen of trading on the cusp, 16-year-old Rachel Fox (as in Stocks; it rhymes, get it?), the shoeshine girl of the modern age. Emphasis added by me.

How did you even get involved in stock-trading?


0227-foxMy parents explained the stock market to me because it’s such a big, important part of life.
 They didn’t expect me to take such a liking to the whole day-trading idea, though.

So, like, what's your strategy? Do you have a Bloomberg terminal?
Well, I don’t like trading stocks that are very news-dependent. I trade on the technical analyis of stocks. (Lord in heaven, give me strength – Ed.)

Do you trade penny stocks?
OH GOD, OF COURSE NOT. No, I go to Yahoo Finance every morning, that's my thing. And then I go to my trading platform [Scottrade] and do the technical stuff in there. (Because, like, ScotTrade is, like, so awesome. It has, like, the best charts, y'know? – Ed.)

And this is fun?
Definitely. There are certain things making it easier for common people who work and have a day job to do this as well. I'm not just a typical guy who has a suit and goes to Wall Street. My point in writing this blog is not trying to compete with the finance professionals. It’s more just to inspire people to trade.

Who do you go to for investing advice?

Well, um, really … nobody? I mean, I'd have to think about that.

Any people you really look up to? Who's your investing idol?
I heard a story about Warren Buffett, that he has none of his college degrees hanging on his wall. He only has his certificate for public speaking, which is so awesome and inspiring. (Buffett. Naturally. Although I'm not quite clear on why hanging this particular certificate on the wall would give anyone an emotional boner. But, then again, I'm Tim on a Whim, not Fox on Stocks – Ed.) If you can learn public speaking, you don't have to have a ton of education to do well.

You couldn't let go, huh?

It’s hard to master the psychology. You’ve got to know when to step out of things. (Not true, Ms. Fox. You simply have to wait for people who have absolutely no business engaging in a particular vocation professing to be an expert. It's a cinch. – Ed.)

I bet you got a lot of calls after your CNBC appearance.
I'm going to keep those confidential, but there may or may not have been some requests. (Very shrewd, Ms. Fox, very shrewd! Keep those cards close to that chest that the men of America are scrutinizing – Ed.)

So when do you start managing other people's money?
[Laughs.] Maybe I’ll start a hedge fund

So – – look – – I've got nothing against sixteen year olds. I was one once myself, and at the time, I wrote my first book – the first of a couple dozen, actually (and that first book, incidentally, argued for the importance of computer-to-computer communications and how it would transform the world, way back in 1982 – so thank you very much). But, having done charting for a quarter-century now, I'd rather not be told by a doe-eyed girl how to draw a trendline……..or what stocks to buy (errr, short) for my own hedge fund.

Oil Salesmen

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Accomplished traders know that the news has little to offer other than occasional context, and mostly entertainment value. This chart is our latest installment in the category of you-just-can't-make-this-stuff-up.

Greasenews

Look at the two articles published by Bloomberg recently. Then, compare the dates the articles were published to a daily chart of WTI futures.  Oil was getting ready to launch for the moon. The orange arrows point out the specific days that Goldman and Barclays issued their bullish reports. Sure, the odds are pretty good that the light, sweet, and sometimes crude stuff will hit $100 this year. But for now, all we have is entertainment value.

For your reading enjoyment, here are links to the full articles:

Brent at Nine-Month High on Chicago; Goldman Sees Tight Supply - Goldman Sachs

Oil May Head to $100 With Two-Year Support - Barclays

Apple's Quarter Was Lousy, But Stock Still Headed To $1,000 – Forbes (sorry,couldn't resist)


Originally published at Trade Flight Plan.

A Touchy Subject – Part 2 (by Mark St.Cyr)

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I must assume some of you at first blush wondered why in the world I would even touch upon such a topic. It’s a fair question.

The reason is more times than not we believe one thing is driving a
market. Yet, we find the actual drivers aren’t anything we first
considered. Remember when a cellphone was the newest and greatest device
known to man before it was replaced with a smart phone?

Think back to all those great features we enjoyed while continually
adding more at a near breathtaking pace. You, me, and a lot of others
believed those updates or added features were caused by our demand or,
our ability to influence the market of cellphones. After all it’s all
about us. Right? Wrong…

(more…)