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.

Snap, Crackle, and Proof

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Proposition: Snap, Inc. probably owns the world’s largest collection of child pornography.

Consider this:

(1) SnapChat has over 300,000,000 monthly users around the world;

(2) There are about a million photos and videos posted by Snap users every single day;

(3) About one-quarter of the user base is under 18 years old;

(4) As is well-known, a meaningful percentage of the images exchanged are of an erotic nature, since the entire product positioning is based upon the ephemeral nature of the posts (for the slower Slopers, that means the pictures vanish in ten seconds);

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It May Take More Time For A True Breakout in Metals

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By Avi Gilburt, ElliottWaveTrader.net

First published on Saturday April 8 for members of ElliottWaveTrader.net:    I have read in many places on the Internet that the metals have certainly broken out.  But, as you know, I am not quite convinced.  Now, that does not mean I am bearish.  It just means I still think there could be more downside seen before a true break out is seen.

As I have been noting for the last few weeks, silver has been providing us with the clearest of the patterns.  And, last week, I noted that, under both patterns, silver still looks like it needs one more push higher before it is going to make its decision.  This past week, we got our push higher to complete what is best counted as a 3rd wave off the March lows.  But, as we know, 3 waves up does not constitute a bullish trend.  Rather, we need 5 waves up to complete.

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Stocks, Bonds and Gold; Snapshot of a Shifting Macro

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Over the last year we transitioned from the stock market angst of 2015 to the bullish breakout of 2016.  For NFTRH, the real proof in the pudding was the ramp up in the cyclical Semiconductor sector’s Equipment sub-segment (Applied Materials, Lam Research and the like).  Specifically, we tracked a trend in Equipment orders and projected a bullish Semi sector a year ago.  The logical extension of this was a bullish stock market, since the Semis are a leader.

What a difference a year makes.  Reference AMAT Chirps, B2B Ramps, Yellen Hawks and Gold’s Fundamentals Erode from last May.  Our best target for the SOX index was around 940 and late-arriving momentum players (and their ‘quant’ machines) have driven the index beyond reason of late, to a high of 1017 last month.  It is time for a cool down in this leader; potentially a real deep freeze because it has been running way too hot.

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