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.

The Price of Comfort

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I retain stop-loss orders on all my positions. On occasion, fewer than ten times a year, I am facing a really tough morning in which I need to decide whether, one, just to grit my teeth, let a portion of the positions get blown out by their stops, or two, delete all the stop orders and re-enter them with the hope that the worst of the buying will be done soon after the market opens.

Today, I decided to just let the stops stay in place, and the result was that I got zapped out of some of my positions at pretty much the worst prices of the day. This psychological “insurance” cost me many thousands of dollars. It would have been better to have just strapped on a pair. This was a $10,000 insurance premium that was valuable for about five seconds.

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Fadeless Morning

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Good morning, everyone, and a happy Thursday to you.

Well, I admit it, I was hoping that for whatever reason overnight that Micron mania would fade, but no such thing has taken place. It is at lifetime highs and is going to vault massively higher on the opening bell. As a reminder, I have no position in Micron, but this is definitely going to be a gut punch due to related positions I’ve got.

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Biting the Big One

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You are probably weary of me griping about my mismanagement of my Bitcoin short. Too bad! I’ve got to get this off my chest.

Simply stated, my declaration at $83,000 that Bitcoin was about to fall hard was, to date, the greatest trade idea of the Year of our Lord 2026. It was brilliant. I think, in sum, I made a few thousand bucks off of it. BFD. That’s pretty goddamned sad for the trade of the year.

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Nip and Tuck

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There are occasions – – and I wish they happened more – – in which everything seems to be doing my way, profits are pouring in, and (God forgive me) trading seems easy. It is at these times I have learned to TAKE SOME PROFITS, which is what I did earlier today. I trimmed risk in one big account from 220% to about 105%, taking profits off my zaniest shorts. To be sure, I still have tons of short positions, but when I’m feeling giddy like this, I know it’s time to de-risk to some degree.

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