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.
This doesn’t happen often – – well, almost never, really – – but I totally dodged a bullet by sheer chance. You see, on January 6th (there’s that date again!) I went long CROX $125 puts expiring in September. Yesterday, even though there was obviously a ton of time left, I sold them at about a 65% profit, as illustrated by our beautiful Options Charts page.
Only a few days ago, I saw the patch of sidewalk in Durham, North Carolina where the market bottomed. On the morning of October 13, 2022 (no, I do not have to look up the date) I was walking one of the gazillion dogs I have brought into my life (Rolo), anxiously holding on to my iPhone and awaiting the CPI report. 2022 had been a superb year for me, as well as for Slope, and I was waiting for the next leg down in the bear market to take place.
The CPI number hit, and it was hot, and the market plunged……….for a minute. I didn’t know it at the time, but, thanks to additional trillions of dollars that our idiotic and short-sighted government hurled at equities, the Dow would have 20,000 points added to its value in the span of just a couple of years. It goes without saying that the event is seared into my consciousness both vividly and painfully.
In sharp contrast, I was walking a different dog this morning, anxiously awaiting the CPI, and it came in hot, just like before.
There’s a reason I don’t get up four hours before the market opens to opine on what’s happening, but I’m afraid my mega-shifted sleep cycle rules the roost, so here I am.
Last night, there were two big earnings announcements: AMD and GOOGL. I was most interested in AMD, since not only do I find Alphabet’s chart to be incredibly boring, but also because I have a block of June puts with AMD. I got a jump-scare at first, since the stock shot up by $6, but for whatever reason (a deeper look at the report, I suppose?) the stock began to poo all over itself, and it is now – – well – – ugly!
Welcome to the post-tariff world!
Although I have the ironic reality of heading to the airport in the morning, right around the time the market will be opening, I at least wanted to get a post out to get a “hot take” from the futures markets following the mayhem of this weekend.
The /ES, not surprisingly, took an instant triple-digit plunge. It isn’t melting down, because there’s the completely predictable chatter about “oh, Trump’s just playing 8-dimensional chess, and this is all going to be settled in a few days. Goldman Sachs sez so!” I dunno. We shall see. In the little bit of time I’ve spent putting this post together, the /ES has already bounced 24 points above its low.
There won’t be a victory lap. We can start with that fact. I’ve done this long enough to know what a multi-dimensional error that is.
Don’t get me wrong. The mini meltdown taking place in crypto and tech stocks is a delight to my soul and made it very hard for me to sleep in anticipation of Monday’s opening bell. I mean, honestly, there’s one particular meme coin I’ve been watching carefully as it lost 66% of its value in just a week, and seriously, it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks.
