Let's face it – with their first earnings call coming out next Thursday, things are going to be awfully interesting….
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.
Market Action During Bernanke
I have a couple of remarks to make about the morning's action, so far, during Mr. Bernanke's testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.
Further to my post of July 16th, a near-term support level of 483.00 has been re-tested and is holding, so far, on the Utilities Index, as shown on the 15 min chart below…one level that I'm watching relative to weakness/strength on the other Major Indices. Near-term resistance of 485.60-486.00 lies overhead and would need to be overcome in order to push the other markets higher.
The low and high of the recent small "diamond" pattern on the SPX:VIX ratio pair have been re-tested this morning as shown on the 60 min chart below…price now sits at the next resistance level of 83.93…the next hurdle for the SPX to overcome if it is to resume a rally.
Twilight of the Elites Book Review
I just finished reading Christopher Hayes' Twilight of the Elites, and I'd like to add this to the list of books I recommend Slopers read.
It's a marvelous examination of meritocracy in America – its value as well as its failings – and applies particular focus to the sharp growth in wealth disparity over the past thirty years.
I personally believe that books like this and the cures they advocate (namely, to soak the rich) aren't really going to materialize into action until widespread calamity strikes, but they do make for enriching and thought-provoking reading nonetheless.
There was one passage I liked in particular, which I shall happily type for you now. It sums up the theme of the book nicely:
Along with all of the other rising inequalities we've become so familiar with – in income, in wealth, in access to politicians – we confront now a fundamental inequality of accountability. We can have a just society whose guiding ethos is accountability and punishment, where both black kids dealing weed in Harlem and investment bankers peddling fradulent securities on Wall Street are forced to pay for their crimes, or we can have a just society whose guiding ethos is forgiveness and second chancves, one in which both Wall Street banks and foreclosed households are bailed out, in which both inside traders and street felons are allowed to rejoin polite society with the full privileges of citizenship intact. But we cannot have a just society that applies the principle of accountability to the powerless and the principle of forgiveness to the powerful. This is the America in which we currently reside.
Gold Updated – Move Along, Nothing to See Here
Only when Au breaks above the weekly EMA 35 (and holds it instead of being quickly reversed as it was on the break early in the year), triggers MACD and then confirms with a slower TRIX cross will gold be out of the woods technically.
That is a Descending Triangle and it is running out of room (with the bottom line being the horizontal support zone in the low 1500's. DescTri's are usually bearish, but they are also usually 'continuation' patterns as opposed to the current would-be 'reversal' [from up to down].
But there is an alternate view and that involves a decline to the high 1400's, which if held, would reinforce the pattern as being a bullish Falling Wedge, not a DescTri.
There is some bearish Descending Triangle hype out there (to go with the opposing 'gold to 3500 cause the system is falling apart!' hype).
The reality is that the relic is an anchor to honest money and it has been beaten down systematically since the panicked momo's wrecked it last summer. 'WHAT'S WRONG WITH GOLD?!?!?' scream people who do not get the concept of patience.
I happen to believe that gold first blew out from its own unhealthy sponsorship and then for some months now has been held down with the help of the Fed's manipulative policies in Treasury bonds. That's what I believe; fit me for a tin hat.
But the pattern is tight, has relieved all of the previous unhealthy bull pressure and is in a much more healthy stance. Again, my guess is that gold will break down through the first support zone and then we watch to see if it finds support at the would be Wedge line in the 1400's (favored) or takes the express elevator to the next projected support in the 1300's.
Crude Oil Breaking Out
Good morning, everyone.
Well, it's pretty obvious the world is on the edge of its seat waiting for Bernanke to do what he does best – drop hints about QE3. I confess to being a little puzzled why the good people of Earth feel that QE3 is going to be offered up to them on a silver-plated platter. The stock market is near multi-year highs; interest rates are at multi-century lows. Umm, what crisis, exactly, would bond buying be coming to rescue us from?
Anyway, crude oil has been firming up into a nice basing pattern and looks ready to make a run.
