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.

A Macro View & Gold’s Place Within It

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The August 31st edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole went deep into gold, silver and especially the miners this week (to the near exclusion of most other markets), discussing near-term technical probabilities and long-term fundamental views, along with a lot of other “need to know” details on this now booming sector. NFTRH 878 closed with something of a big picture macro/philosophical view before wrapping up with the Portfolios segment.

Big Picture Macro & Precious Metals Bottom Line

It’s a bull market, baby (or per Old Turkey, “it’s a bull market, you know”). Thrills and spills ahead.

But the supporting theme is the new macro and its new rules that we’ve anticipated since the 30yr Treasury yield Continuum broke to the upside in 2022. Since then, the job has been to interpret the implications of this big picture macro trend break, along with other indicators of major change.

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Gold Ratios to Cyclical Markets

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Important gold ratios to markets that are more cyclical

When gold rises again vs. these markets the counter-cyclical economic view will generally be back on. Gold has far more utility (insurance, risk-off liquidity, relative value retention) during economically troubled times than cyclical assets like stocks and commodities.

Gold/SPX (U.S. stock market)

A sweet consolidation as the market angst of the spring has gone bye-bye. This is a lovely consolidation that was much needed as gold got over-pumped to the upside (and stocks to the downside) in April.

Graph showing the Gold to S&P 500 ratio over time, with price movements and trend lines. Indicator values and trading volumes are also displayed.
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Gold Is Revolution

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Gold is revolution against an expiring system that is still limping along

The expiring system (in progress for years, actual expiration date unknown) has limped along, through Fed (monetary) and government (fiscal) oversight, fabulously enriching the rich and impairing the middle and lower classes. The system has tilted the playing field heavily in favor of the ruling class. Yes, I am writing from within and about America.

It is beyond the scope of this article to go too far into the details, but money created out of nowhere (monetary) and spent into circulation (fiscal) must go somewhere. Where it goes is into assets and asset markets.

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Jackson Hole Week – with Implications

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Jackson Hole week is often used as a policy bull horn

It is clear that the market is taking some froth off the top of several recently over-bullish areas (everything from Palantir/AI to MP Materials/REE are taking haircuts) and it is doing it with fear of the Fed as rationale. This could paint the current market turbulence in these and other areas as brief, depending on what comes out of the Fed’s orifice at week’s end.

The Fed has traditionally used this getaway as a pulpit from which to hint about coming policy. With slipping economic signals (everything from employment to commercial real estate) continuing apace, I don’t think that the inflation jitters instigated by last week’s PPI report will stack up against the decelerating economy. That report was not inflation, after all. It was the effects of fiscal (tariff/trade) policy.

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