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.
That was one strange day we just went through. Between the Trump/Musk war, the no-deal-for-Japan, and the BBB passing the Senate, there was a news avalanche that buffeted the market all over the place. The /RTY, sadly, went into full blown squeeze mode. I dumped my IWM puts (7% loss) but re-entered just a simple short-sale on IWM at decently-high prices. Still, we have got to break back below the green line for this to have a prayer.
That, as they say, is that. Earlier today, I shut down my September $220 puts on IWM with a 7% loss. I’d say the analog is wrecked at this point, and I’m not going anywhere near this thing for the foreseeable future.
Another morning, another all-green screen. We have the /ES just barely skirting below lifetime highs from December and February:
There are a couple of uncomfortable truths I recognize: one, this website is more popular when the market is down, and two, there is no guarantee anywhere that the market will ever fall again in a meaningful way. None.
As far as we know, the market will go up double digits every year for the next fifty years. It isn’t impossible, and considering how the market is shrugging off ALL bad news lately, it seems like almost a foregone conclusion.
Having said that, here is just a sampling of where the cash indexes stand, which is basically a few microns under lifetime highs. Quite a few ETFs are already there (having benefited from dividend adjustments), and in the case of the NASDAQ 100 index, its high today was literally 99.999% of the lifetime high from February 19th. Very close, but no cigar!
Seventy-eight days have passed since the April 7th low. Since that time, life for the bears has gone from Awesome to Unbearable (so to speak). This became even more unbearable-er as the semiconductor fund SMH stopped dicking around with its trendline and made the leap higher.
