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.

It’s Not a Good Feeling

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I had an interesting psychological experience I thought I’d share on this cool Thursday evening, as I sit in the night air.

I run a tiny hedge fund which, not surprisingly, focuses on short-selling. In spite of the market running up to lifetime highs this quarter (indeed, just days ago), I had booked a respectable profit, and I was satisfied with my results. And then………..I got scared.

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Market Management 101: Balance

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I cannot profess to tell others how to effectively manage their accounts because I am a lowly participant who is learning all the time. The truth is that 2019’s learning is much different than 2018’s learning was, which was different than 2016, 2011, 2008/2009 and other pivotal market phases. So I’d say that the biggest lesson to learn has been the concept of marrying adaptability with discipline.

Cookie cutter advisers and brokers have it easier. They’re the majority of market professionals and they’ve learned and set in stone the way of allocating into markets; 60/40 stocks to bonds or some such variant. But for something more effective than ‘cookie cutter’, you need to keep learning, adapting and holding discipline as long as your signals remain valid.

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