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.

Bottoming Formation for JPM (by Paulenoff)

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Lately, with the debt ceiling negotiations usurping everyone's thought processes, excitement about last week's powerful upmove in the financials and banks has faded into the background. Purely from a technical perspective, however, JP Morgan (JPM) is acting very well as it continues to carve out an intermediate term bottom formation, presumably ahead of a thrust that projects to 45.00-46.00.

Since its high at 42.55 exactly one week ago today, JPM has relinquished half of its gains into the 40.60/50 support zone, where it is finding support that should provide a secondary basing area from which renewed strength should emerge in the upcoming hours — headline and market risk notwithstanding.

All else being equal, JPM is poised to begin a new upleg that will revisit the July high at 42.55, which if hurdled, will trigger upside targets into the 45.00-46.00 target zone.

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Originally published on MPTrader.com.

8 Stocks Heading For Disaster

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Here's a list of stocks, that should the U.S. get downgraded, or the market just continues to slide downward due to the lack of a compromise between the two parties, should take it hard on the chin. Each of these stocks are just breaking below critical support levels, from head and shoudlers patterns, to major support and trend-line breaks.

Be Sure To Check out Ryan's Blog at SharePlanner.com

When Stops Betray You

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Well, today was another odd day – – and with all the cross-currents going on, that's no surprise. For a while, it looked like the bulls were putting together a nice counter-trend rally to shake off some of the recent weakness. That totally fell to pieces, and now we're in a no-man's land again, without any clear direction at all.

One pisser for me was my short position in ABC, which got promptly stopped out at the opening bell. I don't mind getting stopped out – after all, that's what stops are for – but this was one of those rare instances where you get pretty much the worst price of the day, and the stock totally reverses in your favor.

This is especially unusual after an earnings report. A stock moving higher or lower or earnings will, in spite of some wiggling around, generally move in a positive or negative duration for the session, with most of the move represented by the initial gap.

In this instance, the stock gapped higher, and it lost that entire gap and moved into a loss for the day. You can imagine how, for a person with a short position that had been taken out, this would be exasperating.

The solution would be much wider stops, but that would probably cause more harm than good. In any event, I just wanted to share this little anecdote that, while I have a firm belief in stops, they can sometimes really screw you over.

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Which Way Thursday?

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Phil Davis of PhilStockWorld has an excellent article out this morning, as always.

In his unimitable style, Phil points out to the McClellan Oscillator, which is also one of my favourite technical indicator.

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Phil shows that the Boyzs have been manipulating the market on a regular basis every month. They panic us to sell stocks to that they can buy cheap and then pump it up so that they can sell high. Isn’t it the same argument I have been making all along? This is happening like clockwork quarter after quarter.

Apart from various TA, which I am sure are great for trading, market is always ruled by greed and fear. Greed builds up slowly and price increase leads to more price increase. Fear acts all of a sudden. Imagine you are alone in a room, reading a thriller and engrossed in it. Now imagine your partner entering the room silently and screams the hell out of you. What will you do? You will be startled, panicked and throw the book and jump out of the chair. After a minute or so, everything is cool and OK.

Today’s situation is similar. The Boyzs are trying to panic us. And we are looking for information wherever we can find them.  What is a regular housekeeping matter has been turned in a power grab by the Republican Party and they will pay heavily for this. We deserve the politicians we elect and the misery they bring along with them.

I have been in this situation before and only thing I can tell is what I would do. Just close eyes and stop thinking. If the market goes up big time, I will sell. If the market goes down more, I will buy.

I do not think the world is going to end on 2nd August, I think it is one month down the line.

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Thank you for sharing my thoughts.