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.

He Went Galumphing Back

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As far as I’m aware the only nonsense word from Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky to make it into general usage was ‘galumphing’ a wonderful word evoking something large and ungainly achieving speed without grace. Still a favorite word of mine, though not one I get a chance to use often.

NDX has reversed back up on a setup I show on the NQ daily chart below, and the obvious read is that NDX is galumphing back to a retest of the all time high, though NDX still looks heavy and might fail to deliver on that.

In the meantime SPX delivered a higher high and the possible daily RSI 5 / NYMO buy signal that I was hoping to see start brewing on a higher high is now brewing, and should fix as an when this move up tops out. SPX daily chart: (more…)

Effective Market Management: Art & Science

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saul steinberg
From Saul Steinberg’s 1954 drawing ‘The Line’

The notion that there is art involved in interpreting the economy and financial markets is probably heresy to many market participants and probably 99.9% of economists (that .1% guy being the one who’s excluded from the meetings and egghead social gatherings), whether they be right or left leaning (I always find it entertaining to hear right wing and left wing economists duke it out, as I did on NPR yesterday, coming to diametrically opposed conclusions amid the tax reform debate). (more…)

TBT Advance Gains Momentum

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As we noted in our article last week, we have had strong reasons technically as well as from a macro perspective to be bullish on the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT) since its low just under 33 on September 7.

And the TBT has continued to rise since then.  It gapped up Wednesday to $35.50 from Tuesday evening’s close at $34.46.

The upward thrust occurred just in advance of the unveiling of the President’s Tax Reform Plan (Wednesday at 3 PM ET), so we have to couch its bullish action under that umbrella.  But with lower taxes for most individuals and businesses and a one-time business foreign repatriation tax-break being reasons to anticipate an increase in spending, infrastructure, and investment, higher interest rates likely will be a bi-product of such a policy mix — if tax reform becomes law. (more…)