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.

Wowser Trousers

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“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

– Rumi

Like the rest of us, I have many characteristics to my personality, some good, some bad. One of the better ones that I am pleased with is a sense of wonder. I am always open to being astonishing. I am always willing to accept the inexplicable as being possible. I recognize, as Saint-Exupéry did, that what is essential is invisible to the eye.

And, thus, with such lofty wisps, I offer the following chart. Although I say it every day, I’ll repeat – – click it for a bigger version, because I use enormous screens, as I personally think people using mobile devices to look at financial charts are psychotic, or at least masochistic. So here we go:

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Silver/Gold Ratio is a Guide as Inflation Signals Fade Again

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The interplay between gold and silver is a critical component to understanding what is out ahead; to understanding whether long-term Treasury yields will rise and if they rise, whether it will be due to inflationary pressures. It is a critical component to understanding whether cyclical commodities and other aspects of a greater inflation/reflation trade will finally break existing downtrends. See…

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The Biggest Winners

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This is a survey of the biggest winners, on a percentage basis, over a number of time-spans. Below I have created galleries in SlopeCharts of the best gainers for 2019, the past five years, the past ten years, and the past twenty years. I want to emphasize two things: (1) even though I just told you, I’ll say again these are percentage charts, not normal charts; (2) if you want to see the big version of any chart, click on the thumbnail. Unfortunately, the left/right arrows don’t let you navigate the entire set, so you need to click on any specific chart to see it.

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Ten. Long. Years.

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One decade. One decade has now elapsed between the fabled 666 bottom and now. Think about the world in March 2009. Obama was still finding his way around the White House. Facebook was a private company. Netflix was five bucks a share. And ZeroHedge was just a few weeks old.

And as a surprise to those who might consider me a die-hard permabear, I offer a post from that very day, March 6th, 2009, entitled Tim-Bull – –

This is not to say I’ve gone “all long”. I have, spread out among my accounts, 176 positions. 64 are long, 72 are short, and 40 are options (all of them puts). So on a position-count basis, I am more bear than bull. But on a cash basis, I’m more bull than bear, particularly since some of my long positions are well into the six figures.

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