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.

Gold Stocks Will Benefit From Cyclical Change

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As we have noted over the many years of the gold sector’s bear market, the gold miners will not rally for real until the real sector and macro fundamentals come into place. Those fundamentals do not include commonly promoted inflation, China/India “love” trades, a US dollar collapse or especially, war, pestilence or any other human misery than economic. The more astute gold bugs do not fall for that.

The gold miners are counter-cyclical as they leverage gold’s performance (whether positive or negative) relative to cyclical assets and markets. Hence the handy picture showing the key fundamental items with the 4 largest planets orbiting the golden sun being the most important.

So the 3 Amigos (of the macro) were saddled up last year in order to guide us to the point of macro change. Linked here is the most recent update from October 19. In this post let’s look at just one macro fundamental indicator among several important macro and sector fundamentals; the ratio of gold to developed stock markets. (more…)

Treasury Bonds and the Fed

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Excerpted from the Market Internals segment of this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 522 (Oct. 21). The segment focused on the bond market and its macro signaling this week. There was more to the segment, including US and global negative divergences in play to long-term yields (positive divergences for bonds) despite the bullish technical situation, and some possible implications/downside targets for the stock market.

Treasury Bonds and the Fed

The technical signs [of a potential bond bear market/breakout in yields] are there, but…

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SPX/Gold, 30yr Yields & Yield Curve – Amigos 1, 2 & 3 Updated

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We began the Amigos theme last year in order to be guided by the goofy riders during the ending stages of a cyclical, risk-on phase that was not going to end until the proper macro signals come about, no matter how many times the bears declared victory along the way. The fact that grown adults see conspiracies around every corner (okay, I see them around every third corner myself, but work with me here) makes such macro signaling very necessary in order to keep bias at bay.

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Trump Bemoans Fed Rate Hikes and He’s Got a Point… Sort Of

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See…

Trump delivers another attack on Fed, calling central bank the biggest threat

Here is the entire article (blurb)…

President Donald Trump unleashed another attack on the Federal Reserve, calling the central bank his “biggest threat,” in an interview he gave to Fox Business Network. “My biggest threat is the Fed,” Trump said, according to excerpts released by the network ahead of an interview to air at 8 p.m. Eastern. “Because the Fed is raising rates too fast and it’s independent so I don’t speak to them but I’m not happy with what he’s doing because it’s going too fast because you looked at the last inflation numbers they are very low.” When pointed out to Trump that he nominated Jerome Powell instead of Janet Yellen, the president said he wasn’t blaming anyone. “I put him there and maybe it’s right maybe it’s wrong but I put him there.” He also referenced the other nominees to the Fed he’s made. “I put a couple of other people there I’m not so happy with too but for the most part I’m very happy with people.”

“Because the Fed is raising rates too fast…”

The 2 year note players in the bond market are and have been raising rates too fast if anybody is; and I don’t think they are. But Trump does have a point in that it appears the Fed is playing catch up on his watch after being way too slack on the previous administration’s watch (as I used to routinely bitch about). (more…)