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.

All Bear

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I almost cringe with embarrassment at the level of bullishness that has infected my own blog. I believe in free speech (to an extent……..) and open-mindedness (to an extent…….) so I try not to let it bug me.

But I do want to make clear that I remain steadfast in my 925 target, as outlandish as it may seem in this renewed "2007" zeitgeist that has appeared. Indeed, the seven lonely bullish positions I did have, I promptly closed this morning (six of them, if memory serves, were profitable). My portfolio stands at 112 bearish positions. That number seems puny, I realize, compared to how high my position count sometimes is, but July has been unkind to the ursine.

Our kooky precious metals friends still must be gnashing their teeth, because everything shiny is looking increasingly rusty. I had a very large short position in GLD which, regrettably, I covered yesterday (at a profit, but still……..) but I am still the happy holder of a large SLV short position, which seems poised for pain.

0727-SLV 

Good luck out there.

The Dow Theory Buy Signal (by Springheel Jack)

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Something very interesting happened yesterday, though few people seem to
have noticed. The Dow closed above the highest close made in June, and
the Transports index did the same. We therefore have a new Dow Theory
Buy Signal, one of the most venerable, and reliable, of trend change
confirmations in the indicator universe.

Richard Russell, writing before the close yesterday said:

'If they both close above their June highs, it will be particularly noteworthy, because simultaneous confirmations imply a special power.'

As far as I am concerned, that has all but killed what remained of the
summer bear case, we are just waiting now for long treasuries to break
support and for the 13/34 EMAs to cross back on the weekly chart. 30
year treasuries look as though they may well break support today:

100727_T30Yr_Daily_Rising_Suppport_Trendline

I was researching a weekend post on the 13/34 EMA weekly cross the other
day, and while the post is still on the drawing board, I was very
struck by the points of comparison between the look of recent market
action and the pullback in 1998 during the dotcom bubble. Here's the
chart of 1991 to 2000 with the dotcom bubble highlighted in yellow and
the comparable period in 1998 circled:

100727 SPX Weekly 1991-2000

In 1998, as now, there was a sharp correction on SPX, from 1190 to 923,
and there was a 13/34 EMA weekly cross that then recrossed within a few
weeks for a strong buy signal. The SPX then rose more than 50% within
two years to top out in early 2000.

What relevance does that comparison have now? Plenty. We are in another
bubble now, the dotgov bubble if you will, and there is only one way
that a bubble based on an orgy of government spending is likely to end,
and that is with a bond crisis. That bond crisis is not going to be
about bonds on economic also-rans like Greece, it will be centered on
the US and the likelihood that the US will be able to repay the
ever-escalating tidal wave of debt being generated now.

Until we get that crisis we are in an expanding bubble, and valuations could increase a lot from here.

In the very short term I'm expecting to see a peak and a
pullback within a couple of days and I have a possible rising wedge on
ES indicating back to a retest of 1084.5 ES:

100727_ES_60min_Rising_Wedge

If we should make it back to 1084.5 ES, I will be regarding that as a very good buying opportunity.

Sisyphus Redux

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Can bears drop like flies? It surely seems like they can; bloggers that have been wild-eyed bears since last Spring have fully thrown in the towel. Even some authors on this very blog have joined the bull camp. The only stalwarts seem to be our friends in Gainesville, who are back into Wave-Two-Is-In-Its-Final-Throes mode.

As for me, as you know, I've entered a few long positions – – most of which prospered today – – and I will leave it to them to escort me out of my bear cave if they are able to do so. But the preponderance of my positions remain on the short side, and although July has been a cruel mistress to me, I was at least heartened that my fully-loaded portfolio was down only about 0.35% on a day when the Russell was up 2.24%. This kind of severe "underperformance" I can live with, because it suggests that my short positions can still hold their own reasonably well in the face of another triple-digit rise on the Dow.

July has been, almost without interruption, a month for the bulls. You can see how the market has embraced fearlessness with gusto by one look at the emaciated VIX, which has dropped 55% in just a couple of months.

Picture 1

The strength of the Euro, naturally, has played a huge part in July's equity strength. Wasn't the Euro and its continent supposed to be doomed? On June 6th it sure looked that way. Anyway, if we shy away from the high made on July 19th, equity bears will get a bit of breathing room. Otherwise, the "threat" of the EUR/USD moving up to about 1.35 remains.

Picture 2
  

Looking at the September NQ, the price is getting dangerously close to breaking that descending trendline (I would note, with some chagrin, that the ES has already done so):

Picture 3
 

For me, I am still watching and waiting for this countertrend to exhaust itself. If we break above June 21st's high, that is another nail in the bearish coffin. If we break above January's highs on the S&P, that's another nail – – and a big one – – which will leave index charts in an even worse muddle than they are now.

Picture 4

Chart on Shanghai (by Mike Paulenoff)

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The Shanghai Composite Index closed higher for the seventh consecutive session, and more importantly from a technical perspective closed above its (now flat) 50 DMA for the first time since mid-April. The strength extends the July rally, which could be morphing into a technically significant key monthly upside reversal.

If the SH Comp hurdles and remains above the June high at 2598.33 at Friday's close, then the benchmark China equity index will register a potentially very powerful positive technical signal that should be associated with a near and possibly intermediate-term turn in trend. Such a signal could have meaningful positive implications for global growth, corporate profits, and equity prices.

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Originally published on MPTrader.com