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.

Rough and Raw

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Well, THAT was a shit sandwich! At least for any bears besides me. Jesus!

I was watching the CPI release with great anticipation. You can imagine how I felt when I saw that think spike go raging higher on the screen. It felt like an OHLC bar was being shoved through my stomach. So it seems that the Sloper verdict about how tame inflation would be was on-the-mark.

The only things I did right over the past two days were:

  1. Dumped my SPY puts yesterday at a profit;
  2. Wasted no time dumping my IWM puts at the opening bell this morning at a smaller loss than I would have endured;
  3. NOT deploying more cash into positions, and instead tucking it back into the safety of my checking account, where the mean old bulls can’t get to it.
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Downshift

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This is what is officially known as a “Bad Morning,” but at least it’s not a disastrous one. Here’s a quick portfolio update from me:

  • Yesterday, as I mentioned, I had two “aggressive” positions (relatively speaking, since they expire in October instead of freakin’ next year) but got rid of one of them (the SPY puts) at a profit since I don’t trust this market (and rightly so);
  • When we opened this morning, I immediately closed my other aggressive position, my IWM puts, at a modest loss;
  • I also dumped a handful of positions to trim my risk further;
  • I presently have 21 bearish positions, none of which expire sooner than 163 days from right now.
  • I have transferred a huge wad of cash out of the account back to the safe and boring checking account, just to keep it out of harm’s way;
  • Even with that diminishment, I have 21% cash on hand.

See, I don’t do the balls-out, /wsb-style, crazy-risk form of trading. Of course, if the market was plunging now, my profits would be pleasant, but not anything to shout from the rooftops. It’s a two-way street.

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Complete Clarity

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I have been, as perhaps some of you, torturing myself over what I could have done differently on June 16th. That was, of course, the market’s bottom so far, and a perfect time to get rid of EVERY short and go ENTIRELY long.

As it stands now, the Fibonacci retracements are totally clear, and I look and think to myself, “What kind of moron would have held on when the Fib was getting hit like that?” And then I wonder to myself, was I even WATCHING these same retracement levels? Maybe I’m being too hard on myself.

Turns out………...nope, I’m not being hard ENOUGH on myself. I had identified these exact levels long before the bottom, and I went and reviewed my posts from June 13-17, right when the market was bottoming, and I knew EXACTLY WHAT WAS GOING ON, and I said EXACTLY WHAT I SHOULD DO.

Did I do it? No. Why? Because I’m a goddamn idiot, in spite of being a brilliant chartist. Ugh!

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