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.

Blech!

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Well, I've had it to just about here (pointing to forehead where tin-foil hat was removed….perhaps prematurely) with this market. Yesterday there was technical damage all over the place – just what we wanted to see – and today the dollar lost all its gains and the market just lurched higher. Not good.

My only bright spot was my short in AMLN, which I covered almost immediately when it was down over 50%. But that one position constitutes a very tiny piece of my overall portfolio, and overall the day stunk. Ironically, a portion of the losses came from attempts to hedge via DIA, but the market absolutely spasmed the last half hour of the day.

We seem to be at "critical junctures" just about every few days now, but – – sincerely – – we are at one now. Here's a look at the NASDAQ Composite:

1020-COMPQ

 

Incidentally, even though the POMO Market From Hell has only been terrorizing us bears for about seven weeks, it feels like seven years. I've circled the WTF portion of the market action, all of which is POMO driven (I believe Boston said we actually get a one-day reprieve from POMO insanity on Thursday).

1020-NDX

 

The aforementioned DIA is right on the cusp of a potential breakout. I understand that China is going to be putting out some important economic numbers at 10 p.m. EST Wednesday. That's probably going to shake things up in FOREX-land and may well determine what Thursday will be like.

1020-INDU

As usual, it's all about the Euro, folks. Below I've drawn a red line marking pretty much the land in the sand for the bulls and bears. If we cross above that red line……well……the bulls can continue partying.

1020-EURS

If by some miracle the dollar rallies tomorrow, that would actually make a lot of sense given the UUP chart below. Tuesday it zoomed higher; Wednesday it lost all of its gains, completely filling in the big gap. A true countertrend rally last a couple of weeks would be much more possible in this configuration that with the huge gap up we saw yesterday.

1020-UUPTWO

Anyway, today's action really, really took the wind out of my sails. It's a real shame the beleaguered bears can't get more than a single session of a "trend." One day, POMO will lost its effectiveness, but only God knows when that day will come.

Chart on Natural Gas (Mike Paulenoff)

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Let's notice that natural gas futures are in the midst of a potent recovery rally from yesterday's low at 3.395 to this morning's high at 3.593 so far (+5.9%). Meanwhile, the U.S. Natural Gas Fund ETF (NYSE: UNG) has climbed from 5.56 to 5.68, or +2.7% in the "draft" behind natural gas.

At this juncture, both price structures are poised to move considerably higher, but natural gas futures, in particular, are approaching a confrontation with their 3-month resistance line, now at 3.6330. If hurdled and sustained this should trigger follow-through strength in the UNG as well as it confronts its nearest term down trendline, now at 5.800. Of course, tomorrow morning at 10:30 am Eastern, natural gas inventories will be released, which likely will be impactful.

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Originally published on MPTrader.com.

Something to Think About (Springheel Jack)

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OK, consider this: 
 
– We made the first peak in this area five days ago when we hit major resistance. 
– We've been chopping around since in a narrow range.
– We broke that range with a spike down yesterday which has been quickly recovered. 
– USD may well be in a significant wave up.
 
What does that say to you? 
 
If we had a rising wedge (and no QE2) we'd be shorting the hell out of this. Sadly no wedge, just the Fed.  
 
Something to think about though. Here are two very thought-provoking USD charts: 

USD Current Declining Channel:

101020-I USD 1Yr Declining Channel

USD 20Yr long term view with current triangle

101020-I USD 20Yr Triangle

I've been charting the DX futures rather than $USD in recent weeks but on $USD we just hit both the bottom of the declining channel and major triangle support. If we're going to see a big reversal on USD, that was the place to see it and so far it has bounced.