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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.
Mid-Day Minute: Euro-Dollar (by Mike Paulenoff)
The headline in the WSJ (online) reads: "EU Leaders Agree on Support for Greece," but the sub-header tells us that "Euro-zone countries will provide coordinated action if needed to preserve stability." Ok, then… Let's look at the reaction of the Euro to this "agreement" to provide a financial assistance package to Greece: where IS the reaction? I certainly don't see one.
Technically, EUR/USD remains in its 5-session range between Fri.'s low at 1.3585 and the high for the recovery rally at 1.3840, which right now has the look and feel of a sideways, bearish congestion area ahead of downside continuation. Bullish for the PowerShares DB US Dollar ETF (UUP). At this juncture, only a sustained climb above 1.3840/50 will trigger initial signals that a near-term low is in place. Otherwise, the EUR/USD likely will head considerably lower, which WILL get the attention of EU leaders AGAIN, and will compel them to actually DO something.
Unfortunately, politicians ONLY spring into action WHEN FORCED — and that usually occurs when the markets are into panic mode. Let's see when that starts, with the EUR plunging towards 1.3400.
Doing What It Does Best
Quite the whippy market, isn't it? One bright spot for me is I've got the eighteen long positions (and their stops) shown below, entered yesterday. I have far, far more short positions, but it's nice to have a silver lining. Here are the longs and stops (with ACI, CLF, PCX, CPX, and X being the strongest)
ACI………20.81
BPFH………5.99
CALM………32.10
CLF………43.02
CPX………12.76
FMBI………12.17
FST………23.88
LCC………6.11
LEAP………13.46
LECO………46.09
LLL………84.57
LYV………11.04
MTW………10.35
NTRI………20.13
PCX………14.39
SUSQ………6.91
UNH………31.83
X………44.00
Harry Boxer’s Charts of the Day
Rising to the Challenge
Hepa over at the "No xTrends" site has thrown down the gauntlet to financial bloggers by challenging them to offering specific trading ideas – – symbol, stop price, target price – – as a response to the squishy vagueness he believes is prevalent in the financial blogosphere.
I'll preface this by saying that Slope, for me, is a stream of consciousness exercise. If I have a trading idea, I'll throw it out there. If I want to give you an update on my chickens, I'll talk about my chickens. If I feel like sharing some music lyrics that mean something to me, I'll do that. So this isn't a Get Rich Quick blog. It's more of a What in God's Name is Tim Thinking Now blog.
Having said that, when I do offer trading ideas, I usually throw out little more than a symbol and a direction. I don't have the time, inclination, or incentive (or helper!) to spoon-feed trades. I may be in the trade for 30 seconds. I may be in it for weeks. My trades are my business. What you do with trading ideas is your business.
But I'm certainly happy, on a time-to-time basis, to offer Hepa a specific idea with concrete details so he can track whomever decides to participate. So here goes:
My trading idea is to short Royal Bank of Canada (symbol RY). The price as I'm typing this is $51.50, so I think Hepa should use that as his entry price for tracking purposes. The stop is $54. The target is $41. The rationale is a well-formed topping pattern which, should the price break 48.16, should send RY swiftly downhill. And here's the chart!
