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.

Sahm Is Not a Sham

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..but There Is Much More To The Picture As Our Long Held Plan Engages

The Sahm Rule is getting airplay, but Sahm is not what I am… it is just one unexceptional and somewhat lagging indicator to the coming recession

“We are pointed toward recessionary dynamics”… well, no shit Sherlock.

Claudia Sahm talks about the “big lever still to pull” by the Fed. That being a plethora of interest rate cuts. Sahm talks about the unemployment rate, and other things indicative of recession. Article with video:

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Financial Market Stress: Not Yet, But……….

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So here is the thing. During a bull market or very bullish phase, indicators give the all-clear. Come on in, the water’s fine! Investors are always going to be complacent and market/economic signals at least stable (or quite positive) at market tops. It’s the way the markets work. Recall 2000 and 2007. As Steven King would say, “nope, nothin’ wrong here.”

This chart from MacroMicro illustrates the point. During a bull phase in the markets things are fine… fine… fine… and then suddenly, out of nowhere, NOT fine. So pictures like this tell us what we already know; the market is bullish and the waters are calm.

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Can Bad Market Breadth Be Good?

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In a word, yes. But first, bad market breadth will likely be… bad

Excerpted from last weekend’s edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 815:

A subscriber sent me analysis calling for a “Monster [bullish] reversion trade for the ages” based on the extreme under-performance of the Equal Weight SPX (RSP) to the Headline SPX. The writer’s conclusion is that after such an extreme divergence the spring back in RSP vs. SPY/SPX is strong and the broader market is the place to be for out-performance.

Can’t argue with that.

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Gold is Misunderstood, Allright

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Gold is misunderstood, but the misunderstanding extends to those critical of others for misunderstanding it

In Wonderland what is, it wouldn’t be.

The subject of this post has been made anonymous, as I’ve decided to release it to a wider audience. Said subject anonymized those he was critical of and so, turnabout is fair play.

Elliott Wave technical analyst Mr. Anonymous (Mr. A) has an article explaining his view of why gold is misunderstood by analysts that claim it is a hedge against inflation and a hedge against stock market weakness. On the surface, he is correct. You cannot argue with facts and the facts are that gold has been a less than stellar inflation hedge (under certain inflationary circumstances) and it did go down significantly during Armageddon ’08 and the 2020 pandemic crash.

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Proven Wrong, Academics Take 3rd Stab at Gold

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Harvey & Erb, they of the Golden Dilemma, once again promote a story that only an academic would stick to years after being proven wrong

They back, ole’ Harvey and Erb. First there was the Golden Dilemma in 2012, where they predicted $800 for the gold price (it made a low of 1046 in 2015) based in part on its lack of effective inflation utility (well, they were at least half right, sort of).

Then came the Golden Constant as I highlighted in 2019. Again applying faulty assumptions from the rarefied air of academia, they state:

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