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April 6 @ 11:30 am ET |
Slope of Hope Blog Posts
This is the heart and soul of the web site. Here we have literally tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. You can also click on any category icon to see posts tagged with that particular category.
Marty Break!
Enough charts. Time for something really important. Evil thoughts!
Sissy Puss
It was nine very, very long years ago that we reached an important milestone in the history of the market: the fabled “666” bottom of the S&P 500.
One Month Hence
The inability of the stock market to hold a downtrend more than two days is driving me insane (again). It has been two years since there has even been a drop off lasting a couple of weeks.
It was just a month ago that we were in the throes of an all-too-brief bout of excitement. But, looking back, it’s evident that 90% of the move was confined to just two trading sessions. Yep. That was it. For two years of waiting, we got just two days of glory. The next morning was a panic low, and bang, we were back into the unending quagmire.
What’s Hot & What’s Not in US Markets
Depicted on the following graphs are percentages gained/lost in Major Indices and Major Sectors over a longer term (1 year), a medium term (year-to-date), and a short term (the past week).
They are presented, simply, to illustrate where they are relative to those three timeframes.
My only comments are as follows:
- Major Indices: Utilities, Small Caps and Transports continue to underperform, and I’d monitor Small Caps, in particular, as I outlined in yesterday’s article, for further signs of weakness and an indicator of further equity risk-off activity.
- Major Sectors: Energy, Consumer Staples, Health Care and Utilities continue to underperform, but I’d keep an eye on Financials for any evidence of further weakening, as I recently described here.
Weaponizing Intellect
My fear for the future of the human race is grounded in two contrasting but related facts: (1) I am supposed to be extremely intelligent (2) I consider myself an idiot. In other words, if, based upon hard data from tests, the vast majority of people are less intelligent than me, yet if I consider myself just barely able to function and be a responsible member of society, where on earth are we all heading? I mean, come on – – I suck – – but most people suck even worse.
It wasn’t long ago that this wouldn’t have mattered at all. At any given point in human history, you could have created a bell curve of intelligence among all living humans. And yet how much has it truly mattered until recently?
In the year 1100, if you were far and away the most brilliant person in your entire village, would it have helped you at all? Would anyone have cared? Of course not! Because you just need to shovel the pig shit into a pile just like everyone else. Intellect was irrelevant. (more…)
Digging Deeper
A story making the rounds quite a bit on Tuesday was about the young man who torched his $4 million trading account by betting it all on XIV which, as we all know, got completely destroyed in a manner that most would have never fathomed possible. ZeroHedge featured this story for many hours as its header post.
I like sleuthing around, so I decided to dig deeper into this anonymous fellow who lost all this money. After some digging, I figured out his name was Gregory, he lives in Singapore, and he’s one of those gunslingers that hangs out on Reddit’s “Wall Street Bets” forum. In case there’s any doubt about the youthful male nature of such a place, the animated graphic at the top of the forum leaves nothing to the imagination: (more…)