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.

A Quick Update

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Howdy Slopers!

What a night, huh? The last episode of 24 (good-bye, Jack!) and an /ES that was getting creamed.

I treated this morning much like last Friday morning………..that is, as an opportunity to cover my shorts and try to take some advantage of the upside. I got into BGU and FAS, but I got out with tiny profits since the market just doesn't seem to be basing yet.

At the moment, I am quite light…….37 shorts and 2 longs (those being UNG and DBA). I'm going to survey the landscape today for new opportunities, but I think it's time to chill a bit on the bear side. Now that we've almost touched February lows, things are lining up nicely for the formation of that right shoulder.

I'll close by saying the shorts that treated me best were in the energy sector, and I think many of them are going to fight their way back to the neckline, which is going to make a second attack like shooting oil-contaminated fish in a barrel.

It Rained a Little… So What Now? (by Consistently.Incredulous)

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In my last post, Waiting
for the Cloud to Break we were on the verge of a break through the bottom
of the cloud.  We got the break and it
rained.  If you were prepared, you banked
some profits – so what now?

Many Ichimoku indicators are flashing bearish signals: price
broke down through the Kumo (cloud), and crossed below the Kijun, the Tenkan
and Kijun crossed (bearish), and the Senkou Span crossed from above to below.

So why not put all your chips on “red” and let it ride?  Well, you could; but historically speaking,
it almost never seems to rain continuously for 40 days and nights after the
clouds break.  Check out how much
oscillation there was through the cloud in 07 & 08.  It might just be my psychological scars from
the failed 09 H&S talking, but I would expect no different this time.

As a DIY chartist (ht: Jack Damn), I find it offers a great
amount of flexibility when I would like to add, remove or edit settings.  So this time, I’ve taken the SPX and put the
cloud to a log scale.  Here’s the big
picture:

 
SPX_1
 

As of the drop today, I see an additional region of support
(see red zone) that was resistance in Sept 09 and has been support since.  We are touching that support now:

 
SPX_2
 

Just as with linear technical analysis, I like to see the
price action retest the underside of a line – or in this case – retest the
underside of a cloud and fail.  This
happened in 07 & 08 and I have no reason to think it will not happen again-
short of a black swan news event.  So before
I put all of the chips on red, I’m looking for a July/Aug failed retest of a
bearish cloud – similar to that of Sept 08. 
I look forward to doubling down then.