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.

Layered Chart Improvements

By -

Yes, even on a Sunday during a 3-day weekend, the Slope of Hope keeps evolving and getting better.

One of my favorite features that we’ve added is Layered Charts, and there are two important new improvements I wanted to describe. The first one is a new button called Spread:

What this does is color in the area between the two lines which constitute a layered chart. I think you can see instantly why this would be useful, because you can quite plainly tell how big the spread is, which “direction” the spread presently is going, and whether it’s converging or diverging.

(more…)

Volume Profile Improved!

By -

I am very pleased to tell you that, even in the midst of an insane traveling schedule, we are rolling out a much-improved Volume Profile study. Specifically, we have expanded the depth of data to include much more comprehensive history. You will now see a new dropdown in the parameters for this study which lets you choose how much volume data you want analyzed: from as little as the most recent trading day all the way to “All”, which constitutes about twenty months of intraday data (which is a lot of information).

(more…)

Introducing Volume Profile

By -

From time to time, I’ll ask Slopers what features they’d like to see on the site. For years now, always near the top of the list, was the same thing: Volume Profile.

I resisted adding this, principally because of the challenges of finding a data source. Even the most ardent volume profile fans couldn’t articulate how to get the data. But I cracked that nut, and I’m delighted to say we’ve now integrated this into SlopeCharts. In a few days, this will be limited strictly to my beloved Gold and Platinum users, but for this initial rollout, I’m letting everyone try it so I can get feedback.

Volume Profile is accessed via the same Technical Indicators dialog box where all the other studies live. You have several controls: the ability to change the color of the volume profile, the opacity, and whether or not the profile is anchored to the left or right side of the screen.

(more…)

Check Your Preferences!

By -

Happy New Week, everyone. I’ve got the smallest bit of bad news for you. When we added the latest improvement to the Preferences in SlopeCharts (namely, the ability to show a grade for options liquidity), we reset some of the Preferences to the default. Therefore, I urge you to click the Preferences icon……

And just give a look at the various Preferences tabs to make sure they’re the way you like them. If you’re anything like me, you’ll stumble across features you didn’t even realize were there anymore. It’s a good exercise, whether any preferences were lost or not. Thank you! (And sorry………..)

Event Markers – New Feature!

By -

I am pleased to announce a new feature in SlopeCharts for all paying members (and, nudge nudge, prices are going up next Friday, so those of you on the fence might want to make the leap). If you think of any other genuinely helpful classes of “events”, please do email me, since I’d love to have as helpful a library of dates as possible.

Now, there is a library of date-based “events” built into SlopeCharts which subscribers can overlay on top of a chart. These events include holidays such as Memorial Day and Christmas as well as events from the world of finance such as FOMC announcement days. You can access this feature from the Tools menu:

(more…)