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.

“Harbinger of Doom”: Amigo 3 in Play, But Real Doom Awaits

By -

“The Harbinger of Doom”? Of course we (well, the media) are talking about the yield curve AKA Amigo #3 of our 3 happy-go-lucky riders of the macro. I have annoyed you repeatedly with this imagery in order to show that three important macro factors needed to finish riding before situation turns decidedly negative.

Amigo 1: SPX (or stocks in general)/Gold Ratio

Amigo 2: 30 Year Treasury Yield

Amigo 3: Yield Curve

In honor of Amigo 3’s arrival to prime time let’s have a good old fashioned Amigos update (going in reverse order) and see if we can annoy a few more people along the way. 🙂 (more…)

A Post-Powell View of USD, S&P 500 and Gold

By -

The Fed blinked. This was not news to Macro Tourist Kevin Muir or readers of Biiwii.com, which is very pleased to publish his work.

Fed Finally Blinks

Amid a weakening global economy, gathering signs of weakening in the US economy and a dump in inflation expectations, Jerome Powell implied that the Fed may be going on hold for a while after a December rate hike.

This graph from SG Cross Asset Research/Equity Quant by way of Kevin Muir’s article attempts to show that the accumulated rate hike tightening and “shadow” tightening as a result of QE suspension has now met or exceeded the levels that preceded the last two economic recessions. (more…)

Thanksgiving for Proper Gold Stock Fundamentals

By -

All through the bear market hopeful rationalizations were served up for a bullish case on the gold miners. All through the bear market we warned people not to eat that rotten turkey!

China demand, the China and India “love trade”, cyclical inflation driving up the prices of commodities and resources and the classic… economic growth in the US will create cost-push inflation through wage increases with the smart money seeking inflation protection in gold. All of those and a veritable Turducken of mishmashed ingredients were served to gold bugs as a decidedly not delectable appetizer before the main course.

But with a top in risk ‘on’ global markets now finally including the US (pending any holiday relief bouncing), the planets are aligning per the fundamentals that matter. This will drive up gold’s relational price to cyclical risk ‘on’ assets and improve gold mining bottom line operations (reducing miners’ costs per ounce of gold produced). (more…)

Slowly We Turn… Gold vs.

By -

Let’s take an in-day snapshot of gold vs. several key competitors (for your investment dollars/euros/yen, etc.) and check the progress in turning the macro from risk ‘on’ to risk ‘off’, cyclical to counter-cyclical.

Gold/Commodities motors along above the SMA 200. The move has been hysterical, and thus looks impulsive. That could mean something as we look back in hindsight one day.

gld.dbc (more…)

The Google Machine Inspires a Discussion about Inflation and Deflation

By -

The following is excerpted from the Opening Notes segment in this week’s edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 525 (out on Sunday, November 11). It pretty much came out of nowhere after I did a comparison of Google searches for “inflation” and “deflation” while checking Google Trends for another aspect of the report.

The Google Machine Inspires a Discussion about Inflation & Deflation

Switching gears, while I was in the Google machine I decided to compare two terms that are at the heart of our investment management going forward; “Inflation” and “Deflation”.

inflation and deflation

It is no surprise that inflation is always much more often searched for because well, they are inflating in one form or another constantly. Whether it is through outrageously experimental monetary policy under the Bernanke Fed or supposedly sound fiscal policy under the Trump administration, it is all designed to raise prices and enrich asset owners, while leveraging debt (which is where the potential for deflation comes in). (more…)