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.

Another Look at Banks

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As I like to occasionally look at things from the reverse point of view…here are some interesting charts of the bank index. The last few days have been less than impressive for the banks. Additionally, the INVERTED BKX index makes a reasonably bullish chart with its rather pretty bull flag pattern that is emerging……which, by the way, looks like it wants to make a move imminently.

2011-02-28_1736_BKX_UpsideDown-01 
For a closer view click here

Below you can see the tendency toward weakness in the BKX index…and especially on this rebound. At least on a window dressing day, I would think that the banks could get their own stocks window dressed…but not today.

2011-02-28_1734_BKX_SPY-01 
For a closer view click here

Below are two charts of the VIX that show the general view. Given the weekly chart it looks like we are competing our diagonals and that is also reiterated on the daily chart. There are a few options for support and we are currently sitting on one of them.

2011-03-01_0052_VIX_Daily-01 
For a closer view click here

 2011-03-01_0051_VIX_Weekly-01 

For a closer view click here

Hanging By a Thread

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Over the last months, the meltup has resulted in a low volume grind…which can be seen in the volume analysis at the bottom of this chart. Last week gave us a high volume down week and a hanging man candle on the weekly chart of the Russell 2000 similar to candles that have spearheaded other significant declines on the Russell… Certainly is starting to look interesting…

2011-02-26_1920_TF-01 
there is a lot of detail on this chart please view a high-res view by clicking here

Action in Financials

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I would like to get you thinking about financials into the weekend. All the big financials had unhealthy action today in addition to not closing at the highs as the major indexes did. It was not good. The BKX, WFC, C, JPM, BAC, AIG, GS…and a host of others all posted bearish chart patterns that look like they are going to resolve soon…additionally this pennant on BKX looks like a continuation pattern…

Additionally, the transports did not have an especially strong day either…

By the looks of things its about to get interesting…

 2011-02-25_1952_BKX_2007Marked-01 
 
for a more detailled view of this chart click here

2011-02-26_0937_TransportsMarked 
for a more detailled view of this chart click here

The S&P, the Dollar, and Libya

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Its funny, post history everyone will want to blame a sell off in the markets on Libya. The reality is that the Mr. Market has a mind of his own that is very difficult to understand. Sometimes he wants to go up when there is only bad news and even while Egypt wants to rebel and put at risk the largest oil stores in the world and sometimes he wants to go down when a little country with a relatively small amount of Oil contributed to the world oil markets is also falling into revolution. The reality, is that the markets were going to go down regardless of Libya and seemed to want to go up regardless of the any reasonable analysis of Benny BURNake and the Ink Jets, the Banks, the manipulated data or the vast amount of unemployment. Below is an example of why…a 35 year trend line can do the trick especially when combined with a 75% retracement from the highs.

2011-02-23_1357_SP500Marked 
for a more detailled view of this chart click here

2011-02-23_1159_DollarMarked 
For a more detailled view of this chart click here.

…get your army boots on because its not long before they will be needed.

Also for more information regarding the dollar please read this post.



World Upside Down?

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This is the inverted price of Oil…this means every up equals down and every down move is really an up move in the live market. I find it very useful to look at charts in inverted form (I believe that Tim has also found this useful) making a bearish chart bullish and a bullish chart bearish to help recalibrate bias.

On the chart I refer to a breakout of -82. That really means a breakdown below 82 in real life – could be rather bearish for oil. That's the inverted interpration based of the chart and in polarity with the real market.

It is useful to look at this chart when faced with predictions and expectations of Oil moving to new highs…The odds on that look less than certain…

 2011-02-21_2321_Oil_marked
for a more detailled view click here.