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.

A Comparison to Consider

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Let me preface this by saying that my bear mojo has been almost completely drained from my veins at this point. The best positions I have are all long ones, and after 20+ months of hearing (and repeating) Why The Drop Is Going To Start Now, I'm getting close to just focusing on the long side. Call it capitulation if you like; I think I'm past caring.

Having said that, I humbly offer up this interesting comparison between the market top in 2008:

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……..and our present market……

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If we get a rally tomorrow (and the jobs report, I suppose, will decide that), the above is rendered moot.

I once again want to thank the gracious contributors to Slope – – – both those who create posts and those who comment. You guys and gals are the heart and soul of this community, and I am more grateful to you than I can express. This is a special place, and I thank you for making it so.

Good night.

Following Up on Ideas

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As most of you know, you can submit Trading Ideas instead of comments now. These are about as simple as they can be – just enter whether you are Buying or Selling and enter the stock symbol (equities are the only type supported right now).

In the upper-right corner of your home page (that is, Slope of Hope) you'll see a notation of any positions you have open. You can click on that and reveal your current positions as well as your past positions (and whether or not they were profitable).

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In addition, you can click on anyone's profile – including your own – to see how their past picks have done. The "score" at the top shows the number of winners versus the total number of picks.

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I'm glad to see so many people using the Ideas feature – – keep 'em coming!

Cool New Slope Features

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In case you haven't noticed already, there are some really spiffy new features in the comments section. Let's take a quick look:

First, in order to make it abundantly clear that there are all kinds of goodies lurking underneath, this subtle reminder appears when you mouse over a person's profile area:

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Click it, and that yields this dialog box. The two new buttons here – Highlight and Ignore – let you do something to other Slopers. Any guess what that is? That's right! You can highlight and ignore them.

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 An "ignored" Sloper's comments will not appear in your thread (although their avatar still will), and a "highlighted" Sloper's comments will be surrounded by a rectangle and put in boldface, as shown here:

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You can also now add trading ideas. It's very simple for now – you can just enter stock symbols (not options, futures, credit default swaps, or iron condor spreads, for that matter). Just choose whether you are Buying or Shorting and enter the symbol – the system will track how you do over time. Of course, you can close any position later when you decide it's time to take a "profit" or stop the bleeding.

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I hope you enjoy these new goodies; Slope is always in a state of getting better.