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.
Don’t Change the Channel!
The Best Days Start Worst
This is just a brief observation, since I’m curious if anyone else has experienced the same thing.
To come straight to the point, I’ve noticed this year that every single day that I would consider a great trading day has something very specific thing in common: it starts off as a day that seems like it will absolutely stink. Every. Single. Time.
Take what just happened on Thursday. My experience so far during the week was bumpy. Monday sucked. Tuesday sucked. Wednesday was very good. Yet the market was fairly strong overnight, and Thursday morning, when the jobs report hit – WHOOSH! – equity futures got even stronger. So, I thought to myself, well, crap, Wednesday was the odd man out, and I’m going to have another lousy day.
Not so. Thursday was absolutely fantastic, definitely one of my best days of 2026. Yet when it started, there was absolutely no clue it would turn out that way.
If this was a singular occurrence, I wouldn’t even mention it, yet instead it is a universal truth. Every great day starts off rotten.
There must be some wisdom within that experience somewhere.
Index Update
The stock indexes are in an exceptionally interesting configuration: almost without exception, every major cash index has hammered out a well-formed diamond top reversal pattern. This examination will be repetitious in that respect, but let’s press on.
First up is the NASDAQ Composite. I’ve lazily drawn a rectangle to represent the diamond, but trust me, it’s there.
Ten Key ETFs
Last week was a doozy: Monday and Tuesday sucked out loud, and Wednesday and Thursday more than made up for their suckitude. Let’s look at ten ETFs.
The DIA is the odd man out. It hit a lifetime high. Mercifully, my concentration was in tech shorts.
