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.

Theory of Relativity

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Since its President’s Day, I think I’ll write about something Presidential. And this quote from our patron saint George Carlin is absolutely crucial to the piece:

 “When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.”

See, I want it crystal clear at the outset that there is nothing political about what I’ve got to say. Our nation is deeply divided along political lines – – the worst I’ve ever seen – – and I can write or tweet about just about anything under the sun without repercussion, but the moment I so much as mention the word “Trump” without words of gushing adulation next to it, some Duck Dynasty-watching mental midget flips out.

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The Slow Burn

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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the last day of Obama’s presidency. For the bears, Obama has represented nothing but an unbroken string of misery. He seems like a good family man, but Lord in heaven, I will have horrible memories of his administration from a trading perspective until my dying day.

Having said that, the ES stalled on its Trumpgasm weeks ago. After the “oh my God, it’s going to be Trump” limit-down collapse in the ES (which, if I recall correctly, was about 230 years ago), equities went on a vertical tear. It looked like another breakout was underway (green tint), but that flopped, and we’ve been slightly under the broken trendline ever since.

0119-es

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Inaugural Thoughts

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It may seem hard to believe, but this is going to be the last full week of Obama’s presidency. After eight years (long, horrible years for the bearish set), Obama’s tenure in the White House is nearing an end. His excellency President Twitter will be sworn in (placing his hand, I suppose, on The Art of the Deal) in just a couple of Fridays. There are very few guarantees in life, but I’m pretty sure of this: this is going to be a verrrrrrrry interesting administration.

Anyway, since Trump’s inauguration is coming up, I thought I’d reflect a bit on what happened in the equity markets when Obama came into office. It’s kind of interesting (I’ve also featured two images of Obama, showing how much these two terms have aged the man).

0108-obama

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