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.

The Age of Boom & Bust Accelerates

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Like it or not, human will – and a hell of a lot of financial
chicanery – has created this bull market.  Powerful people, not duly
elected but rather appointed, are continuing to degrade the peoples’
money in the interest of keeping the system moving forward.

Here is the S&P 500 shown establishing a new technical objective
(hey, it’s TA and it does not care about right and wrong) after hitting
our long-standing target of 1460.  I had no clue why SPX was targeting
1460 other than the election cycle that NFTRH followed all summer.  But
now I (and you) have a clue, thanks to the DML (Dear Monetary Leader)
following up his Jawbone with action – very inflationary action.

s&p 500

When the inevitable politics of the ever-increasing divide between
the have’s and the used-to-have’s crop up people should remember the
massive and open ended asset bailout that was just kicked in.  Here I
have got to tip the hat to papa Gold Bug Jim Sinclair who, for all the
misery he takes was right on with his ongoing ‘QE to infinity’ mantra. 
This is the mechanics of why some are enriched and some are
disenfranchised.

The only time I have a problem with the ‘QE to infinity’ stuff by the
way is when it causes people to hang on during those extended phases
when deflation is the greater threat.  You know, the times like over the
last year when the inflation gun was being reloaded?

It appears that Mitt Romney spit in the eye of the monetary gods when
he tried to politicize the Fed and announced Bernanke’s probable ouster
by a would-be Romney administration.  The Fed showed him a thing or two
about politics, didn’t it?

Imagine the S&P 500 in a strong cyclical bull market, the economy
lukewarm but not in crisis (on the surface, anyway) and still the Fed
goes open ended and all in.  This is precedent setting and this could
well be the last play of the current system because if a massive asset
bubble results from this there will probably be no coming back from the
eventual crash.

Enjoy.

http://www.biiwii.com

Lazy Trade Long & Short: SHLD & HE (by Ryan Mallory)

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Taking on any short positions of late has been more than likely an unmerciful experience. I personally have avoided them like the plague, and as I mentioned yesterday, they will be relevant again at some point, and when that time comes you want to be ready with a list of setups you can take advantage of. 

On the other hand, today's long Sears Holding (SHLD) comes as some surprise for some of you all because it has been one of the most hated stocks for years now. In fact I usually pass right over it, but @thetradingwife brought it to my attention and the set up is incredible. So if it can pullback to $62.20, I'll likely initiate a long position on it. 

In other trading news, I sold my position in FBHS today at $28.36 from $24.54 for a 15.6% gain – a very nice trade and one that I held from 8/24. 

Here's today's Lazy Trades Long & Short:

LONG: Sears Holding (SHLD)

Sears Holdings SHLD

SHORT: Hawaiian Electric (HE)

Hawaiian Electric HE

Be sure to check out Ryan's Blog at SharePlanner.com

Post-Fed Close

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Further to my earlier post today (Thursday), here's where the markets closed after
the Fed announced a new round of monetary
stimulus.

Equities, as represented by the YM, ES, NQ &
TF
, spiked and made the highest close, so far, this
week and this year, on higher volumes. The YM and ES are at/near the top of
their rising channel, while the NQ and TF are trading above, as shown on the
Daily charts.

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Forks in the Road (by Springheel Jack)

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Every so often you reach an important fork in the road where a market must take one way or the other, and once taken, the option not taken becomes very low probability. Yesterday was such a day. I told my brother in the morning that if we were going to see a major top on equities in 2012 then that was likely to be yesterday around 1440 SPX. Obviously QE3 was announced in the afternoon and 1440 was broken with a lot of confidence. I'd like to see that confirmed with a weekly close today over 1450, but I'm now no longer seriously considering the possibility of a major top in equities in 2012, and am writing off all the huge bear patterns that have formed over the last three years on many instruments and indices as a huge bear trap. I'll be expanding on that with various charts in the next few days but it what it is, and we are where we are. The trend is now most likely up well into 2013. 

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