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.

It Was a Dive Bombing, Not a Carpet Bombing

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I went out in the afternoon with gold screaming upward on COVID-19 hysteria. I see something like that and I mentally prepare for the “volatility violence” we talked about in last weekend’s edition of NFTRH (#591).

Maybe some of you old hats like me remember the last bull market, from 2001 to 2008. Yes, of course you do. Massive “attacks” on gold were routine, and they seemed to come at highly sensitive times for another manipulated asset class, stocks. How on earth can you calm the herds down and tend them back into stocks if gold is flying around way up there signaling ‘all’s not well!’?

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“We Will Use Those Tools”

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Today from Fed Chairman Powell…

Powell says Fed will aggressively use QE to fight next recession

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday the central bank would fight the next economic downturn by buying large amounts of government debt to drive down long-term interest rates, a strategy that has been dubbed quantitative easing, or QE.

Of course they will. The fix is always in, isn’t it? Wouldn’t want to let a system and associated economy so far out on a brittle limb weighed down by exponential debt leverage go it on its own, now would we? Wouldn’t want anything like a naturally functioning economy because until an utter and complete crash and clean out, there can be no such thing. So more debt manipulation it is!

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A “Translation Service”: HUI Daily, Weekly & Monthly Charts

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Note: The following is a TA post. It tries not to focus on fundamentals or the negative potential sentiment setup that could develop when Coronavirus relief finally spreads across the land. It’s the short and long-term TA of it, as it stands now.

I found this comment response to the Goldseek version of my article on the long-term gold Commitments of Traders situation to be amusing and also on point, since I know a lot of what I write can be confusing to the untrained eye amid a sea of readily digestible analysis out there. Good one, sir…

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Perspective on the Long-Term Gold CoT

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Because it’s so important to see this correctly and not pretend we (well, I) know more than we (I) actually do I find it important to look at pictorial representations of history and think about them when I get some quiet time (ha ha ha, like not on Twitter, not reading financial/gold websites and most certainly not watching TeeVee finance and news).

So I am thinking about the Commitments of Traders alignment with respect to the gold price once again. That would be the same CoT that has doggedly hung a poor risk vs. reward sign out over the sector from a sentiment standpoint since the summer.

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Gold/Silver Ratio, SPX, Yield Curve and a Story to Tell

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I most often use linear scale charts for stocks, markets and indicators for their more absolute views. But in the case below we conjure up a long-term log scale chart showing the Gold/Silver Ratio (GSR) and the S&P 500 (SPX), as it works better in providing a percentage-based relationship between an indicator of market liquidity and inflation when declining and lack of liquidity, deflation or… it has to be said, Goldilocks, when rising.

Now, when viewing the most recent Goldilocks phase, where SPX has gone in positive correlation with the GSR we will have to suspend disbelief that this is anything normal or natural. It was created by will of man as first the Bernanke Fed conjured a balls out inflation out of 2008’s deflationary destruction and then as a crowning achievement, concocted Operation Twist in order to manipulate the bond market into flashing this signal… ‘Nope, no inflation here!’

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The Crazy Train to Bull Eternity

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Once again I have to disclaim that at the moment (and for quite some time now) I hold not one single short position, in anything. I am only long US and global stocks. But also managing cash and portfolio balance as usual while feeling as though I’m playing a game of Musical Chairs while the music still plays (nothing nearly as good as Keith’s style, which has always resonated with me beyond most others).

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