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.

Gold is Still Getting Fixed

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Hey look, what better place and time to be posting gold-bullish articles?  😉

So there was a panicky spike in gold last summer as the herd sought refuge from the euro, which was falling apart as some of its components had a really hard time peddling their legacy of debt.

This was going to be the big one as gold was finally going to blast off, better get aboard!  You are a gold bug now and you are safe!  No, unfortunately the new players were just being introduced to the overdone euphoria of the upside thrills, only to later be introduced to the bile of the inevitable downward reactions.

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His Own Market Narrative Presents a Useful Post

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In honor of Tim's increasingly scary pictures of the HUI… 😉

IWNATTOS, who is an interesting, provocative and even kind of a pain in the butt subscriber to NFTRH has a unique style.  He is really unvarnished and that's the way I like it in a blogosphere full of smarty pants geniuses.

This post is compelling:  DOOOOOOOOOM!

As part of a series of 'in-day' management email updates yesterday, I used his post as a talking point about sentiment in the precious metals mining stocks.  In other words, to wait for a final capitulation pukage with gold bugs jumping out of windows or maybe this time, are they simply simmering to death like frogs in a pot?

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Gold’s Real Price and the Investment Case for the Miners

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As the HUI index of premier gold miners continues to chop and grind its way through ongoing correction, the idea for those who understand that this unique sector of the stock market stands to gain during phases of economic contraction, is to survive. The idea is to remain strong (and by strong I mean have cash to exploit the intensifying value proposition) and be ready for opportunity, which is likely to present itself to nearly the extreme witnessed in Q4, 2008.

Now, I don't expect nominal HUI to decline to anywhere near the 150 level that was so compelling a buy in 2008, when quality explorers were selling for net cash, gold in ground for free. But as the index grinds around looking for a bottom, whether it be in the ongoing consolidation or a final washout, the opportunity should be in the same 'no brainer' territory as it was in '08.

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The Hero

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The Headline reads "Ben Bernanke saved the global economy.  So why does everyone hate him?"

I don't know for sure why everyone hates him; he seems like a nice enough fellow.  But it could have something to do with the smug, myopic and academic surety with which he goes about his business of remotely managing an economy that should be allowed to purge itself of the excess leverage and unmanageable debt that has been systematically layered in over the years, enriching some and relatively impoverishing many.

It could be because people who care enough to see through the headlines know that he is systematically employing more of what already brought the system to this sorry state.  They hate him because he and his ego are reworking the Treasury market to paint a desired picture that all is well and good.  They hate him because being astute enough to extrapolate forward, they know that what he is doing paints things a certain way in the short term (for short term benefits to some) while hard wiring in future damage that would continue the progression – measured over years in the era of Inflation onDemand – of ever rising moral hazards.

I don't hate him, because that emotion is counter productive when it comes to managing this mess.  He is just the self-satisfied face of those entities that would seek to destroy me (and my big picture investment stance) if I were to allow that to happen.

Look at him… look into those eyes… look at the powerful monetary god casting his gaze upon you.  He cannot hurt you if you understand his modus operandi and his true mission, which is to inflate the banking system out of a black hole that was created by policy the likes of which is being employed today.  Feel sorry for him, because his mission really is an impossible one.

I continue to wonder whether he is an evil genius or an impossibly dull stooge (as compared to his predecessor) who actually believes his own b/s.  The US Treasury yield curves have been reworked by a powerful macro monetary manager.  The curves are now telling us that there are few concerns about inflation, thus the Fed is free to keep ZIRP on tap indefinitely.  We also see the economy revving up a bit… yet still no sign of a withdrawal of ZIRP.

What is this man afraid of?  Go ahead, let the economy fly of its own merit.  Go ahead genius, I dare you.

http://www.biiwii.blogspot.com       http://www.biiwii.com

Risk vs. Reward, AU-Style

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The broad market, supported by the glorified boiler rooms on Wall Street, the glorified infomercials in the mainstream financial media and the glorified monetary clerks at the Fed, operates to its own set of rules and cycles.  For instance, now we have conventional investors who used make cracks about their 401k's becoming 201k's actually becoming hopeful that they will regain all of their lost value.  The wonders of inflationary monetary policy has brought this prospect tantalizingly close to becoming reality.  Close, but…

Over in the gold sector however, where investment is actually a form of revolution (against inflationary fiat monetary systems), it is not so easy.  Investors simply must be mindful of the risk vs. reward setups at all times because the same forces arrayed in support of the stock market are lined up against the barbarous relic.  I am not saying this is a conspiratorial cabal, but I am saying that macro manipulation (like the recent 'reworking' of US Treasury yield curves) is just the way it is, whether it is planned out in the shadows to the most minute details, or just the result of embedded 'business as usual' academic myopia in a fiat system.

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