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.

U.S., European & Chinese Financial Weakness

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In my 2016 Market Forecast post of December 29, 2015, I mentioned three ratio charts worth monitoring for 2016.

They show the strength/weakness of the:

  • XLF (U.S. Financials ETF) compared to $SPX
  • EUFN (European Financials ETF) compared to $STOX50
  • GXC (Chinese Financials ETF) compared to $SSEC

The following three updated Daily ratio charts show that U.S. and European financials are weak (and weakening) compared with their respective Major Index, so far, this year, while China’s financials are also weak and mired in a long-term trading range, just above major support.

Even if U.S. equity markets do break out of their long-term high-basing trading range (as described in my last post), none of these three ratio charts fill me with much encouragement to project that such a rally could last very long if we see continued weakness, and, especially, a deterioration in these Financial ETFs compared with their Index.

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A New Frontier Awaits For U.S. Markets

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A new frontier awaits for U.S. equity markets to explore. They are fairing much better than other world markets, in spite of the Brexit uncertainty, and look poised to press upwards (likely choppily) for awhile, as shown on the 3-year comparison chart below of the SPX, World Market Index, and British Pound:USD Forex pair.

However, the closer we get to the U.S. Presidential election in November, we may see upward momentum begin to flatten out.

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