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.

A Fractured Misconception

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Amongst the permabulls of our race – – which is basically everybody at this point – – there’s this empty-headed notion that as crude oil prices plunge (an event I predicted repeatedly here on Slope), cheaper gas would make the economy boom even more. I’ve read this sentiment so often that I just had to same something – – in case you think plunging oil doesn’t indicate a fundamentally worsening economy, but instead is just a “peace dividend” to the unwashed masses so they can buy more crap from China, consider what crude oil did starting in June 2008 and what followed………

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The Day After Thanksgiving

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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and that none of you were long enough oil-related instruments for OPEC to upset your digestion. We are seeing a weak looking open today and in part that may be due to the break below $70 on oil, though on all three trading days so far this week we had a significant move down either from or before the open, which then wasn’t followed through. .

I’m skeptical about the prospects for the bears today. This will be a holiday half-session on low volume, and the stats for the last trading day in November are impressively bullish, with SPX closing up 6 of the last 7.

The close on Wednesday delivered another close above the 5 DMA, and another new lifetime high on SPX of 29 consecutive closes above the 5 day MA. If the bullish historical stats for today deliver then we will see SPX make another lifetime high at 30 above today. It wouldn’t take a big move to end that run here though, as the 5 DMA is now at 2065. SPX daily 5 DMA chart: (more…)