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.

At Last! Smart Moving Averages…..

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There is no improvement to SlopeCharts that has been more requested than this one, and after literally years, I finally got around to making it happen: specifically, what we’ve done is make moving averages “smart” so that as you change granularities (daily to weekly to monthly or what have you) them the moving average will change itself to conform to your new granularity. This sounds really obscure, but trust me, people have been howling for this!

Here is the change to the dialog box we’ve made:

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SlopeCharts & Mobile Get Married!

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It’s time for some really exciting news, and it’s been a very long time coming. Plainly stated, SlopeCharts no longer sucks on mobile. In fact, its terrific! Allow me to explain………..

The Slope of Hope is in its 19th year, and through most of those years, a huge portion of the site’s visitors were in mobile devices such as iPads, iPhones, and Android products. I will be the first to admit I’ve done a lousy job attending to mobile users. Slope was created as a desktop computer experience, and with the exception of the creation of Slope’s mobile apps a few years ago, I’ve been quite negligent in making Slope a good mobile experience.

Well, I’m glad to say this is no longer the case. I’ve made the time and cash investment into improving SlopeCharts on mobile so that even the likes of myself, who tends to be very desktop-bound, actually enjoys using the product on my iPad. Here are some specific improvements we’ve made to using SlopeCharts on mobile devices, and I welcome your emails if there are any other important improvements that you would like to see.

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Making Mobile Better

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In spite of my utter dereliction of duty in attending to the needs of Slope of Hope’s mobile users, they have been steadfast. In other words, I designed Slope very self-centered-ly, since I’m a desktop guy, and I’ve got a bunch of big-ass screens. Using Slope on a tablet or, God forbid, a mobile phone, is a sub-optimal experience, to put it very gently.

Yes, we do have a mobile app, and I use it every day myself, but specifically we are really weak and awful when it comes to SlopeCharts. I intend to spend the time and money to change this for the better (and it’s about time…………) since a full 50% of our users are on mobile!

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No Time Like the Present

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One of the countless benefits of paid membership is access to Time Perspective Charts, and we’ve just added a new feature that one of you suggested: the ability to Show Present Day on the chart.

If this is checked, a red vertical line will be placed on the chart corresponding to the present day of the year. This is invaluable for assessing, relative to the present, what the trend for the balance of the year tends to be. Cool stuff, huh?

We’ve Cleaned Up Our Act!

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I’m a neat freak. Felix Unger. OCD. Anal-retentive. A order nut. Call it what you will.

I like things to be clean, organized, and in their place. This is woven into Slope’s DNA, with one glaring exception: our intraday charts have always been littered with the kinds of data errors that have been part and parcel of the financial data industry since time began. It’s just plain gross, and always has been, and it renders the charts useless.

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