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.

US Government Shutdown Looms on February 9th as World Market “SELL” Signal is Triggered

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Another U.S. government shutdown looms this week on February 9th.

Will it…won’t it? That’s the $64,000 question as more volatility is in store for markets.

Given the fact that there are great political divides over a variety of policies, increased volatility in the markets, and, now, the information that’s being revealed that may determine whether or not civil and/or constitutional rights were violated in the months leading up to and after the 2016 presidential election (and any political and/or legal fallout that may occur), will only add to the increased odds of chaos ahead, making future events less predictable. (more…)

Short-Term Energy Bounce?

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As the outset, I’ll say I think oil is heading much lower, but for the moment, it seems energy stocks are………dare I use the word?………..oversold. I at least wanted to point out this mildly-interesting chart of the triple-bullish ETF symbol ERX, which is nestled on a supporting trendline.

energy

As for my portfolio in general, the jury is still out about whether my lightening up this morning was wise or foolish. I remain short at about 100% of my portfolio’s value, but the difference is that I came into the day 200% short.

FAANGs +5: Two New Risky 3x Leveraged ETNs

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On January 23 of this year two new 3x leveraged ETNs were launched, comprised of FB, AMZN, AAPL, NFLX, GOOGL, BABA, BIDU, NVDA, TSLA & TWTR, and their descriptions are as follows…

  • FNGU is an exchange traded note that tracks 3x the daily price movements of an index of US-listed technology and consumer discretionary companies. The index is highly concentrated and equally weighted.
  • FNGD is an exchange traded note that tracks 3x inverse the daily price movements of an index of high concentrated and equally weighted US-listed technology and consumer discretionary companies. The note uses derivatives to achieve its -3 exposure.

They are both highly risky investments and are very thinly traded.

(more…)

The Bounce So Far

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Well, my physical maladies have me awake again when I should be sleeping, so I’ll just use this opportunity to do a comment cleaner. Glancing at the markets, I see the bitcoin is getting slaughtered again (in spite of fuzzy-haired crypto geniuses telling you they will make you rich), and equity markets have made the feeblest of “bounces”, already reversing.

esbou

I see that charlatan investment advisors are already sending out spam saying that Friday’s rout is “a storm in a teacup” (they can’t even manage to get the metaphor correct). I suspect this sentiment is going to last a very long time, considering the deep conditioning investors have received over the past nine years.

In a way, whether it bounces or not doesn’t really matter to me, because my macro play is much larger than any short-term bounce. The only thing that makes me sad about all this red is that the nimrods in D.C. are going to try to stop it at some point. I’d be totally OK with indexes price using negative numbers.

S&P 500 Index: Major Support at 2500

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Just a quick heads-up to mention that major support for the SPX sits between 2525 and 2485, as shown on the following daily and monthly charts.

There is a convergence of the 200-day moving average with two trendlines at 2525 on the daily chart, and, more importantly, a convergence of two external Fibonacci retracement levels with the +1 standard deviation level of a long-term uptrending regression channel at 2485 on the monthly chart.

If we see a major sell-off in equities, we may see price, ultimately, fall to somewhere around 2500  (a 10% drop from Friday’s close) before it stabilizes. Keep an eye on the FAANGs +5, as I more fully outlined here, as well as the 10YRT, as I described here and here. Further weakness in the FAANGs + 5, together with continued rising rates in the 10YRT, could very well propel such a drop in the SPX to that level, or lower. (more…)