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.

Bull Fail

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Well, today was pretty interesting to watch. Bullishness has run wild on Slope, with even die-hard bears proclaiming Buying Stocks being the only way to go. My portfolio remains pretty tilted – – 105 shorts and 23 longs – – and I'm dreading the prospect of many, many weeks of grinding higher. It would take something relatively earth-shifting to give the market what it needs to shatter this month's lows; I think the best I'm hoping for is a continuation of today's dip in order to exit some more shorts.

But I remain firmly on the fence, if that is possible. The bulls had a lot going for them today…….a surging Euro; the day of the week ("Mondays are always up!"); presumably rock-bottom sentiment that should drive prices higher………..the works. And they squandered it. The /ES was exploding higher earlier today, but it farted into a shooting star pattern, coming within 1.25 points of 1103 resistance. The Russell 2000 didn't even manage to get as high as its own resistance level.

0614-rut

So I'm still as skeptical about what's next as I was this weekend, although today's complete fumble on the bulls' part is a tiny, tiny bit encouraging. The NYSE Summation absolutely scares the Abby out of me, which is not a good feeling. So I've taken my foot off the throttle and am down to a 66% commitment of my cash into positions, less than half of a week ago.

So Which Is It?

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It seems to me this week is going to determine an extremely important question: whether the market has exhausted its rise already, or whether it has several more weeks or even months to go.

I have almost zero doubt in my mind that the market is going to plunge to 925 on the S&P in the coming months. What I'm totally uncertain of is whether the run up is pretty much we're we are at now (see the middle horizontal line below) or if there's another meaningful push higher (the upper line).

The lower horizontal line, I am confident, will be broken with gusto. When that happens – – and it could be as last as this autumn – – is the big question.

0614-whichisit