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.

Volatility Floor?

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Volatility, which spent so much of 2018 mired in the doldrums, painted out a series of higher lows late in the summer (see trio of green tinted areas). After that third touchpoint, it exploded higher over a hundred percent, only to have the excitement evacuate as swiftly as it appeared. I’ve tinted a horizontal, however, to suggest that perhaps we’re in a new volatility zone. I hope so, at least. Let’s keep an eye on that level to see if it holds, because this chart would suggest bullishness on volatility going forward.

vix

Those Animal Spirits

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In my pre-market, it’s-still-dark-outside post from this morning, I wrote, in part:

Animal spirits still abound, and there’s a certain subset of the “investor” crowd which are simply gamblers that love stuff like IQ and TLRY. Now that cryptos have crapped all over themselves, they are no longer a suitable place for the casino crowd to get their adrenalin rush. So it’s focused on stuff like TLRY which, I assure you, will look like the chart of IQ soon enough.

In case anyone didn’t really buy the notion that the same psychology was driving gambling in crypto and gambling in pot stocks, observe the intraday action today from TLRY:

tlry (more…)

Facebook Earnings: Seminal Market Moment? Or, Sideshow?

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In the beginning, Facebook connected the world. It brought new hope for humanity and individual, human connections. But the dark, underbelly of the Facebook Beast would be revealed in an unprecedented and extraordinarily jarring manner. A soulless serpent would slither in, unnoticed, and disrupt the otherwise innocent processes, effectively co-opting, undermining and exploiting the intended use of the “gift” Facebook had bestowed upon us, for darker, more nefarious purposes.

Hmmm… that sounds vaguely familiar.

Okay, there’s the requisite melodramatic opening scene that effectively outlines and condenses the evolutionary story and subsequent disruption of the Mother of all Social Media platforms. Fast forward to today, and we have an out of control, unmanageable behemoth of a company, whose right hand still doesn’t know what its left hand is doing. Although, to its credit… it’s trying. But it’s too little, too late. Users are dropping like flies in the haze of a media pest spray discharge. And, distrust of the platform in light of its many convoluted tools and rules, is rampant. Suddenly, the household name of Facebook, has become a household scourge.

However, Facebook continues to espouse the virtues and benefits of its life-changing, relationship-forging platform that started it all. Ah, Facebook… the originator of the great Social Medial Experiment. We were the first. Trust us. We’re trying… really. (more…)