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.

Old FANG-ful

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If you need any indication of just how dull and un-bear-ish this market has become, look no farther than our friends at ZH. During market mayhem, they have an absolute ball dissecting it. When markets basically go up 1% a day without fail, they turn their attention to any other bad news they can find and stick to it for a while. Years ago, it was the Fukushima nuclear reactor. These days it’s Tesla cars that are crashing or bursting into flames. When the market isn’t blowing up, something else always is.

For myself, I can’t really get interested in writing articles about the cars of minor celebrities bursting into flames, so I’ll just turn my attention to the most important driver of global equity markets, which is FANG. Some people say FAANG, so as to include Apple, but, meh, I’ll keep it to four – – plus a bonus mention of another stock.

We begin with Facebook, which managed on Thursday to push to a lifetime high, having utterly recovered from its embarrassing privacy scandal earlier this year (and I must say again, published reports about 10% of Facebook’s user base terminating their accounts in protest was simply irresponsible journalism).

fb (more…)

The Nasty Bite of FANG

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Another day, another NASDAQ lifetime high. And what’s the driver? It used to be QE, but the central banks around the world have already turned off that spigot. The explanation is easier had by one acronym: FANG. Let’s take a look at the four components:

First there is Facebook, which got smacked down hard by the whole privacy scandal earlier this year, but now it just pennies away from its own lifetime high (or double top, depending on which way the wind blows).

slopechart FB (more…)

This 3D Printing Stock Plus 3 More

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+ 3D Systems Corporation (DDD) tacked on 14 cents to $14.50 on 2.7 million shares Tuesday.  The move came on no news from the company, though last week it announced two new 3D printing products.  The stock, which rallied sharply off its May 3 low at $9, flagged later in the month, broke out two weeks ago, flagged again, and now appears to be ready to break out again.  Watch for a move next to $15.75, followed by $17.50.
+ Kopin Corporation (KOPN) edged up 8 cents to $3.64 on 551,400 shares Tuesday.  The move came on no news from the wearable technologies company, though two weeks ago it unveiled the first controlled wearable smart screen.  The stock, which has traded in a range from $3-$4 this year, is moving up towards lateral resistance at around $3.85-.95 zone.  A break through that could get it to the $4.50-.60 zone.
+ Ocular Therapeutix, Inc. (OCUL) gained 36 cents to $7.71 on 737,400 shares Tuesday.  The biopharmaceutical company, focused on therapies for eye disease, announced it will present at the JMP Securities Life Sciences Conference June 20 in New York.  The move broke the stock out of a 3-month sideways pattern.  In a steep rising channel off its November low of $3.30, the stock could get to $9-$9.25, last reached in July.
+ Tandem Diabetes Care, Inc. (TNDM) rose $1.37 to $17.70 on 2.1 million shares Tuesday.  The move came on no news from the provider of medical devices for people with insulin-dependent diabetes.  Since February the stock has run almost 9-fold from just above $2, and, though oversold, momentum could carry it to the low-to-mid $20’s.