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.

Lower Price Akbar

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Over the past week, the ES seems to play this little game with the four bears left living on the planet (yours truly representing 25% of this bold contingent): it would drop a modest but enticing amount pre-open, like 5 or 8 points, providing much-needed hope. Then, quarter-point by quarter-point, it would simply reverse, and then the rest of the day it would be spend powering ever-higher, breaking what’s left of our hearts.

I figure this morning may be no different. I definitely don’t get as excited as I used to. I saw the ES was down 8, and I figured there must have been weak news from the scheduled German economic reports. When I finally got in front my screens, I saw this:

0322-religionofpeace

Of course, environment dictates reaction. If this was, for instance, October 2001, the ES would be down 100 points. Instead, as of this writing, it’s down about 7 (having climbed from down 8.25 when I started typing………….and I’m a fast typist).

In any case, from my own charting perspective, there are a staggering number of screamingly obvious short setups, whereas the only stocks that seem bullish are the ones which have done nothing but climb for years: boring stuff like Campbell’s Soup, and Smucker’s Jam, and McDonalds, and Phillip Morris, and other consumer crap like that. I’m not about to go long grocery story products now. I remain steadfastly bearish.

Latest Thoughts on the Campaign

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Back at the start of the year, when the market was plunging every day and I had the time and mental energy to devote myself to topics besides charts, I wrote this post called My Presidential Election Prediction. The core thesis was, “Status Quo means Hillary. Financial Mayhem means Bernie. Fear means Trump.”

So far, it seems Status Quo is winning. The status-y quo-ish stuff that’s happening is: (more…)

These Hands

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The chap who created Retracement Levels, known here on Slope for many years as 2sweeties, wrote me recently about the U.S. presidential election. 2sweeties is from Italy, so he has an interesting perspective, and since the discourse on the campaign for the Republican nomination has devolved into comparing dick size, I thought this email would be worth sharing:

I was curious to hear your comments about what is happening in the States….
I watched some of the debates between Trump and the other republicans (and also what Hillary said about Trump…).

You know in the early 90s in Italy we had a similar scenario: a guy called Silvio Berlusconi – he was a media mogul, was himself a showman, had built an empire based on real estate and media, he decided to become Prime Minister and self-candidate itself to the elections.

(more…)