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.

An Appealing Double Bottom

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If you’re looking for an interesting (and aggressive) opportunity, triple-bearish ETF (based on financials) symbol FAZ is available. On a split-adjusted basis, this poor creature has dropped from $40,372 down to – – incredibly – – twelve bucks. All the same, that’s an interesting double-bottom in place. (Side note: I’ll be doing a variety of videos for everyone, including some exclusive Slope+ entries, this weekend).

0313-faz

Where’s the Fear?

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The market has fallen a little over 3% since it hit its highs and in the new bull fed supported market this is considered a crash, there is an overall lack of fear this decline compared to the last declines. Looking at the chart below you can see that the VIX index rallied at least 40% before the market bottoms. The stepper the decline the larger the drop but on average the VIX climbed 86%. So where are we now. Well the market has declined around 3.9% and the VIX has climbed about 35%. So what does this all mean, well it means there is a strong possibility that the market has another 2-3% decline and the VIX has another 5%-10% rally before we can start thinking a bottom has been put in. Of course the markets can prove us wrong but history does repeat its self. Click the chart to zoom in. (more…)

Cramer’s Sense of Smell

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I don’t think there’s been a blogger roaming the streets of Palo Alto more bearish on crude oil than me, and to date, that has worked well. Cramer famously announced a few weeks back that oil’s price “smells like a bottom” (which, again, is the kind of olfactory proclamation that passes for analysis, versus my carefully-crafted charts). I personally think the prospects for energy smell more like Cramer’s own bottom, but we shan’t explore the topic further.

0313-crude