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.

So Right, So Wrong

By -

I've said it so many times recently that it's becoming tiresome: EUR/USD up; energy up; gold up. This has come true in spades.

The problem is that to some degree I didn't wait long enough. I am partially positioned to take advantage of the above, but in some cases, I bought puts (or hung on to puts I already owned) in the areas of agriculture stocks that would have been wiser to shed. Because the entire universe of oil, gold, agriculture, and the euro have all blasted higher.

I am highly confident these will all turn the other direction, but I admit it's difficult to know when. The EUR/USD in particular looks like it has the potential to go much higher below crumbling once more.

Time to look at some charts……..

Late Night Dip

By -

This is going to be a quick post, because it's nearly midnight, and even bears need their sleep.

The modest pop higher today in the equities market, as I said earlier, was healthy. Things played out pretty much as I've been anticipating – – – energy strong, gold strong, euro strong, and equities, not so much. The $INDU did a beautiful job pushing up precisely to its major 61.8% retracement level. This is the kind of "fighting back" that the bulls need to do in order to give them hope and exhausted any pent-up buying interest.

The broader Russell index is more reflective of the market's underlying lack of strength. This spinning top shows the market's uncertainty, and prices are toying dangerously (for the bulls) with that 23.6% retracement level.

Energy, in contrast, was quite firm and bounced from an oversold state. The $DJUSEN is the basis of the popular DIG and DUG exchange traded funds, and it pushed up nearly 3% today.

But this energy rally – like that of equities – will not continue indefinitely. I think the tinted areas below indicate similar periods when prices (here, for USO) consolidated for a couple of weeks beneath a fan line, only to succumb and resume the fall.

As I am typing this, the plunge in Asian markets is causing a somewhat weak GLOBEX. Once this bear wakes up early Thursday morning, it'll be clear what effect the latest economic indicators on employment have on the new day. Good night!