Slope of Hope Blog Posts

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European Indices (by cantabnomad)

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Good time of the day, Slopers.

It is perhaps a testament to importance of the US to global markets – absolute majority of financial blogs out there focus on major US indices, such as SP500, Nasdaq, DJI and Russell.

As I am based in Europe, I mostly trade EU indices, which I also often find clearer from a charting perspective. Perhaps that is because many fewer people trade those. Perhaps also my posts on EU indices might be useful to you from a cross-asset perspective.

I bring two charts today, both of which look a lot more bearish than US majors, in my opinion. 

This is an hourly chart of EuroSTOXX50 – an index composed of 50 largest stocks in the Euro area (which in terms of GDP is only 5% smaller than the USA). The EuroSTOXX fell through their early October low, and so far retraced about 62% of their 9.3% decline from the high (SP fell a much more modest 6.6%, high to low).

Eurostoxx H

This is an hourly chart of the German DAX (fourth largest economy on Earth). This is one of the weakest Euro area indices, which so far retraced less than 62% of its 9.75% decline.

Dax short term

It is quite unlikely that US markets go much higher without us Europeans. As European markets are much weaker, and do not look like they could challenge the highs any time soon, I'd say chances are high that the second leg of the decline begun on 20 October is about to begin. 

Thank you and have a great week. – - Aidyn Kussainov

Digging Deeper

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Looking at the charts, I have seriously been scouting for something in which I could take a large long position to balance out my shorts, but there isn't anything out there that I really like.

DIG was a favorite for a while, and at first glance, one might conclude this was an amazing basing pattern.

1109-dig1

Looking deeper, however, there's a fair bit of kruft between 37 and 39.50 that would have to be conquered – – – and the neckline that existed before is pretty badly damaged by the drop do 32.50.

1109-dig2

The biggest turn-off for me is the volume. It is absolutely withering away. It seems that each successive "up" day in the past six has been weaker. So a Dow above 10,000 looks good on the cover of the Daily Bugle in Everytown, USA, but there's not much strength behind it.

1109-dig3

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Civility

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Just a quick note that one of my favorite Slopers decided to stop commenting because of some crass dialog in the comments section on Saturday. I take great pride in Slope's culture. Let's please keep the dialog decent, respectful, and civil – – – and on those rare occasions when the market actually drops, please don't be sniping against the bulls. Being level-headed makes us all better traders.

1109-goofus