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 Fed Can’t Save the GDP Numbers

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Data released today shows that the Q2 Final
GDP
fell short of meeting expectations as it came in at 1.3%
versus 1.7%
.

The graph below shows that it's generally been in
decline from its peak in December 2003. For the past three years, it's been well
below the average seen from 2004 to 2008…proof that the Fed has kept
the markets artificially inflated
since they are currently trading back
up at 2008 levels, or much higher as is the case in the Nasdaq 100 Index,
without the fundamentals to support current prices or continued growth
expectations at the same pace, particularly without the assistance of joint
political economic efforts/policies, as has been the case to date.

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A Candy-Colored Clown They Call the Sandman

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It's been nearly four years since I've written about Roy Orbison, one of my all-time favorite musicians. I happened to see the clip before for the first time, and it illustrates how, even in a live performance – with NO backup singers, NO orchestra, and NO freakin' AutoTune – he had a God-given talent for singing. Plus, he seems like an incredible sweet man. Enjoy:

Channel Magic (by Springheel Jack)

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SPX broke below the middle bollinger band on the daily chart yesterday and ES has been bouncing overnight. That looks like a bear flag so far, and we'll see today whether the middle BB at 1437.67 SPX and the rebroken SPX pivot at 1440 SPX can now hold as short term resistance. It's worth noting from the chart that the daily RSI is now almost back to 50. In a strong bull trend the 45-55 area acts as decent support as I've marked on the chart, so we are now in the likely reversal zone here for a reversal back up if this is just the retracement on equities that I think it is:

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No Cigar Yet

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I am amazed to see how quickly the sentiment changes from
euphoria to doomsday. Was it last week, there were talks of SPX 1500 or higher?
And now the coming doom! Part of the reason being the Fed has taken out the
surprise factor. For last three months the Pavlovian dogs have been drooling
about the coming QE and now that it is here, they are caught in the headlight.  And so far we just had about 2% correction.

SPX

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