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.

Retrospectively Obvious

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I never want to tempt the trading gods with hubris, but sheesh, that seemed a little too obvious, didn’t it? On Wednesday, when Slope was littered with individuals calling for the ES to go – – and I quote – – “straight up” from its already lofty heights, I took a look at the simple chart imaginable (the ES itself) and observed the following trendline:

0219-es

Of course, those last two bars weren’t there yet, but I took some small comfort (which I needed badly) in seeing that we were approaching what appeared to be another lower high, and that a reversal was at hand. Mercifully, so far, that’s precisely what has happened, with crude oil extending its slippery hand to help.

Help a Brother Out, Yen

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Until a week ago, the dollar/yen cross-rate (USD/JPY) was a virtual avatar for the S&P 500. Pip for pip, and tick for pip, the USD/JPY dragged the ES along with it in any given direction.

Since the USD/JPY has been weak this evening, it was irksome to see the ES down only a little bit (as of this writing). I decided to look at the past several weeks on an intraday basis, and sure enough, the lockstep nature of the relationship of these two changed a week ago, and now there’s a chasm between the ES (below, in blue) and the currency (in black). Suffice it to say I’d like to see the ES “catch down”.

YENversus

Part 3: The Inevitable Crash (by Wim Grommen)

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Stock market indices are mirages

What does a stock exchange index like DJIA, S&P 500 or AEX mean?

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) Index is the oldest stock index in the United States. This was a straight average of the rates of twelve shares. A select group of journalists from The Wall Street Journal decide which companies are part of the most influential index in the world market. Unlike most other indices the Dow is a price-weighted index. This means that stocks with high absolute share price have a significant impact on the movement of the index.

The S & P Index is a market capitalization weighted index. The 500 largest U.S. companies as measured by their market capitalization are included in this index, which is compiled by the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

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