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.

SPY Bear Flag

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Over the last 10 days the market and SPY in particular have rallied off the lows of 135.76.  Since then SPY has moved upwards establishing two new trendlines.  The first is the extension of the long-term trend from December the second is a short-term trendline from 4/10.    SPY upwards movement has also been capped by a uptrending channel.  All-in-all this has created a bear flag bearish pattern.

Bearish Flag:  Is a bearish continuation pattern that is formed after a down movement.  Its is characterized by a sweeping down movement followed by an upwards consolidation.

  • Measured Move:  The "Flag Pole" for SPY bear flag is about 6, from 141.82 to 135.76.  This means the estimated downwards movement of SPY would be 6 points from its break.
  • Price Target: Depending on where SPY breaks a price target of this move would be 132.66

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The One That Got Away

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Oh, this one makes me put on my sad-face. I was short Riverbed coming into yesterday morning, but I got stopped out at a small loss. I didn't really have the time to re-assess the stock yesterday, but you can imagine how my heart sank after yesterday's close when I saw the stock getting pounded 17%. My heart sank further still as the stock continued to collapse during regular-hours trading today, losing over a quarter of its value.

Sigh. Such is the risk of overly-tight stops.

0420-RVBD

April Opex Friday (by Springheel Jack)

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The possible bear flag on the SPX 15min broke down yesterday, but without much conviction, and with a decent recovery late in the day. There was no positive divergence on the 15min RSI, but if the rally sees the RSI move over the 50 line today then I would stop looking for that divergence as we don't always see it. As with the last move up, no clear trendline formed so it's hard to see any trendline resistance below the 1388 area:

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Channel Surfing on the YM, ES, NQ & TF

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You can see on the 4-Hour charts below that, from their March high to April low, the YM, ES, NQ & TF are still trading within their Fibonacci retracement zone. All of them are below the 50% level, with YM as the strongest, followed by ES, NQ, and TF, respectively.

The YM and ES have formed an uptrending channel from the low, and price is still trading within it after Thursday's close, although the YM pierced briefly below in Thursday's trading.

The NQ and TF are still trading within a downtrending channel from high to low, although the NQ pierced briefly above in Thursday's action, and the TF is attempting to form an uptrending channel.

I mentioned in my post of April 17th that I'd be looking for a continuation of Tuesday's advance and a hold above its high on any retest before I would assign a "bullish" rating to all four in the short term. Since that hasn't happened, we'll have to see whether we get more choppy sideways movement, or a resumption of the pullback below the low of the Fibonacci retracement, or whether we see price stair-step upwards to break and hold above Tuesday's high, before a new trend is eventually established on a Daily timeframe. I'd re-iterate that should this third scenario play out, I'd like to see high volumes support such a move, particularly on any breakout and hold above April's high, especially with respect to the NQ (for the reasons I explained on April 17th).