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.
Volume by Price Profiles: NPK (by Leisa)
Since I introduced to you Volume by Price profiles, I will periodically share with you some charts that I run across that might have some approaching inflection points that are made all the more vulnerable by volume concentrations.
NPK has a pretty significant VbP bar in the $105 – $110 area. I believe that a break below $105 would likely trigger some stops and send the stock downward quickly in the air pocket below.
Position: none as of post upload
The ES Broadening Bottom and USD (by Springheel Jack)
Yesterday's early bounce failed at the key resistance level I mentioned
yesterday morning, which was the top trendline of the broadening bottom
on ES, and it fell most of the way towards the lower trendline over the
rest of the day. After a very weak close, it has fallen further
overnight to well below Monday's lows.
As it is still very clearly the dominant pattern here I'll be focusing
on the broadening bottom today. Here is where we are on ES at the time
of writing:
The first thing to note about this particular pattern is that it is a
monster. If it was to break up from here without touching the lower
trendline it would indicate to 35 points higher than the top trendline
of the pattern. As soon as we have a hit of the lower trendline of the
pattern though, currently at 1093, then the breakout target would
increase to 54. If we were to break up from (say) 1160, that would
indicate almost to new highs, and if we were to break down from (say)
1080 that would indicate to 1027. This is now a very big pattern.
The lower trendline of the pattern is currently at 1092, and won't be
lower than 1088 if we hit it today. If we get that far then we should
expect a bounce there, as even if this pattern is going to break
downwards, there is a reasonable expectation of a partial rise from the
trendline and then a return to break through it.
Even though this pattern is called a broadening bottom, these break
upwards only 53% of the time. A partial rise and return to the lower
trendline would indicate a 67% probability of a break downwards, but if
we do break downwards, there is only a 44% chance of meeting target.
This is not a high probability pattern on a downward break particularly.
As with all patterns and channels, if we hit the lower trendline, we
should watch carefully to see whether an IHS is forming. If we are to
see a good bounce, then there is a better than 50% chance, in my
experience, that we will see one form. If we are to make it back to the
top of the pattern, then it will most likely be a big IHS, and I can see
now that we have formed a possible left shoulder to such an IHS
overnight.
As ever these stats come from Bulkowski's excellent
website.
Now the inverse correlation between USD and equities is not what it was.
When USD bottomed in November the SPX was trading in a rectangle
between 1085 and 1115. Now that USD has rallied almost 18% we are still
near the upper end of that SPX range. That said, there has been a strong
correlation in the meantime in that while USD has been in a strong wave
up, equities have either traded sideways, or corrected down. While USD
has been trading sideways or down, equities have rallied strongly.
That matters, as USD has been in a very powerful wave up since
mid-April, accelerating powerfully in the last two weeks particularly.
At some point this wave up will finish, and if the correlation remains
the same, we will then see a powerful rise in equities.
The most important of the USD currency pairs is obviously EURUSD, and in
recent days that has met the rising wedge target just about 1.25, and
has since hit my broadening descending wedge target at 1.215 overnight.
Unless EURUSD is in freefall now, which is definitely possible, then we
should be close to an important reversal point:
GBPUSD has also been sold off powerfully and I have been having a very
careful look at this on the weekly chart. Again we have a broadening
descending wedge and my target if it should be hit this week is 1.408.
If it is hit next week it will be at 1.40, which is the key long term
support level for GBPUSD. At minimum we should see a powerful bounce
there and I will be a buyer of GBPUSD if and when that level is hit:
Of the commodity currency pairs, I posted on 21st April that
AUDUSD, which was at 93 at the time, had a very good chance of falling
ten cents or more to a target of 81.5 within a right angled and descending broadening formation. As I write AUD has been below 84
overnight, and there is a good chance now that it will make that target.
Naming no names, there were a couple of bloggers who suggested that my
AUDUSD target was ridiculous at the time I posted it. Hopefully they
didn't go long. 🙂
There is another target to consider as well though, and that is the 62.5
target from the rising wedge that defined the last major upswing. These
wedges are indifferent performers on equities, but are very good
performers on currencies. If AUDUSD breaks down from the broadening
formation, the target for the next decline would be 69.5 and while I'd
hesitate to go long at 81.5, this would look like a very appealing short
on a weekly close below 80.5. If that pattern target at 69.5 was
reached then the rising wedge target at 62.5 might well also be reached:
The real question for AUDUSD of course is what is likely to happen on
commodities. I've read quite a few posts in recent days about how oil is
now near the bottom of the trading range for the last year, but that
isn't what I see on the weekly chart at all:
It looks clear from the chart that oil has been in a gently rising
channel for the last year, and that the channel is now broken.
Unfortunately there are no downswing targets from a broken channel, but
this could well be the beginning of a very major reversal. If it is,
then we could see oil fall a long way from here and the same applies to
most of the other commodities with the possible exception of the
precious metals. That would put the commodity currencies under at lot of
pressure and we might then see that rising wedge on AUDUSD play out to
target.
As ever, time will tell.
Gold & the Dollar (Mike Paulenoff)
On one hand, gold prices cannot seem to catch a bid today, but on the other, spot gold has undergone a very orderly pullback from last Friday's high at $1250.45 to this morning's low at $1206.50 (-3.5%). For a market that needed a correction, the weakness in gold has the right look of a minor pullback within an incomplete upleg off of the Feb low.
Add to the gold analysis, the behavior of the Dollar Index (DXY), which has turned up sharply in the last two hours largely in response to reports of German resistance to approval of the $1 trillion loan package for the entirety of the EC (as distinct from the 22 billion EUR package specifically for Greece), and because of reports of an impending ban on German equity naked short sales. In other words, there are new reasons emerging to exit the EUR in favor of the DXY.
Let's remember that from early Feb to this week, flight into the DXY was accompanied by flight into gold as well. With the DXY poised to reverse to the upside off of its very shallow 2-session pullback, perhaps gold and the gold complex, too, are nearing another sympathetic run on the upside.
Originally published on MPTrader.com.
One Lesson I Forgot to Mention
Last night, I did a post about nine things I had learned from The Big Short. I meant to write about ten things (as the URL of the post implies), but until now I forgot was it was.
It is this – The Powers That Be Can Mask Weakness Longer Than the Shorts Would Like. In other words, they can use their power to hide the truth for a while. The truth will come out, as it always eventually does, but waiting for the truth to emerge can be uncomfortable – – and sometimes even ruinous – – for those depending on the truth for their salvation.
In the case of the short-sellers cited in the book, the "masking" going on was that CDOs, having pretty much no liquid market, were priced by such upstanding organizations as Goldman Sachs. These firms naturally cited prices favorable to their own positions. So an honest broker might declare a given bundle of swaps to be worth 60 cents on the dollar, but Goldman and Morgan were claiming they were worth, say, 95 cents on the dollar, thus making quite-valuable CDO swaps to be purportedly worth not much value at all.
It would be sort of like getting into a huge short position on Apple Computer (AAPL) at $240/share and then suddenly finding Goldman to be the only arbiter of AAPL value. And after you put your short on, iPod sales collapsed, Steve Jobs got run over by a rickshaw, and Macintosh computers were found to randomly erase hard drives without warning……..yet Goldman said the value of AAPL was $239.50/share, simply because they had a huge long position, even though you knew the value was really more like $80. You can imagine the frustration of the shorts.
The dam did finally break, however, and the investment banks finally had to accept reality, albeit kicking and screaming. Except for Lehman and Bear Stearns, the investment banks didn't really get their comeuppance fully, but it's at least heartening near Big Shorts' end to see these bets pay off handsomely for those with the foresight to make them in the first place.
