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.

An Inflationary Slingshot

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Cost-push inflation could break out (and a note on gold)

Before beginning the post a little context is in order. We (NFTRH) anticipated the current pause in long-term Treasury yields (one indicator of inflation) because pro-inflation sentiment became over-done in March and was due for a cool down; so said a contrarian view. This post discussing the likelihood of more inflation to come is not written by a one-way bias booster. It’s important for credibility to make these distinctions from the herds running with the daily news cycle.

The short-term contrary sentiment situation against the inflation view began with the Bond King’s media-touted short of long-term Treasuries (i.e. expectation of higher yields), per one of our best macro tools…

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A Decidedly Different Look at the ISM

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ISM’s Report on Business (RoB) blisters upward, but…

My former residence within the real economy was right here, in the manufacturing base. I don’t miss it even one little bit, but were I still involved we’d be booming and bitching. Business would be very good and prices and supply constraints very aggravating. The way things went in my segment – Medical Equipment, often pressured by Medicare constraints and general competition – I’d be getting hit over the head by customers about maintaining low prices while facing immovable obstacles in the form of supplier prices and extended deliveries. Now I write for a living. It’s a no-brainer I guess.

That digression aside, let’s look at the RoB. Here is the headline. You can click the graphic to grab the entire report (pdf).

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What a Long and Not so Strange Trip it’s Been for the Gold Miners

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Even today there is some pablum out there talking about how if inflation is good for gold it is especially good for gold miners. I will simply repeat once again that if gold usually does not benefit fundamentally by cyclical inflation (i.e. inflation promoted for and currently working toward economic goals) the gold miners never do, unless they rise against their preferred fundamentals as they did during two separate phases in the last bull market, which were justly resolved with crashes.

Here are a couple charts we used in NFTRH 648 in a segment written to set the record straight. We have also used these charts – especially the first one – since the caution flags went up last summer, visually by the first chart and anecdotally by the usual suspects aggressively pumping the unwitting masses. Buffett buys a gold stock!… okay, well so much for that. Sentiment became off the charts over-bullish and now, as we prepare for the final act of the correction, it’s the opposite. That’s perfect.

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The State of the Macro

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It’s the Bond Market, Stupid

As our Continuum chart predicted over a year ago, Jerome Powell was called to his higher inflationary powers when the macro markets liquidated with great violence and terror. This link shows the Continuum (30yr yield and its monthly EMA 100 limiter) as it was then, begging for inflationary action…

Oh Jerome? Bond market calling…

Below is the Continuum today. Since the linked post last February, 2020, a lot has happened and it has been according to the plans we laid out last spring. The plan was inflationary because the Fed was going into steroidal inflation mode. The ‘Fed comfort box’ on the chart has thinned out from the original post because the red dotted limiter (monthly EMA 100) has declined appreciably since then.

These many months the NFTRH target has been 2.5% to 2.7% on the 30yr Treasury yield. This week that zone’s lower bound got dinged. It is coming time for a cool down at least, if the macro reflation is going to get a second wind. What could provide that second wind?

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HGNSI Joins Progression of Gloom in Gold

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Hulbert’s HGNSI joins other sentiment-based positive indicators for Gold

Just as ole’ Jim Cramer above signaled an imminent short-term rally recently in the stock market, bleak views coming out of the gold bug “community” are reliable contrary indicators. The Hulbert Gold  Newsletter Sentiment Index (HGNSI)  is out and it is fully bullish on a contrary basis as it shows gold newsletter writers in full retreat.

But first…

We have noted that Gold’s CoT has been improving (CotBase)…

gold cot
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