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.

USD/Euro to Be the 4th Horseman?

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I find the previous two monthly charts of USD and Euro to be of such great interest that they could well be assigned the designation of Amigo #4. But that would screw up a perfectly good (and goofy) theme.

I could shoe horn them in as the 4th Horseman (thought I forgot about this theme, did you?) but the 4th rider was to be the Gold/Silver Ratio (GSR). We’ll see on that, because the GSR has been a dysfunctional indicator for so long now.* USD & Euro may yet be the 4th Horseman of the Apocalypse to help bring on the pain after the happy go lucky goofballs above finish up. (more…)

A Few Words on the Gold Sector

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As the long-term interest rate Amigo continues upward, the anti-USD ‘inflation trade’ continues onward and more and more gold bug writers emerge from the woodwork, it is time for a little antidote to the inevitable pitches and hype to come.

Everything is playing to script and with this little pullback to a higher low in the miners being resolved in the favored direction, the writer bugs are going to further their bullish message and try to get more reader bugs to follow their guidance. But absolutely nothing has changed.

We caught the seasonal rally amid much disgust by writer and reader bugs, and it has simply not yet concluded. Nothing more to read into it than that. While I think 2018 is likely to see the confirmation of a new bull market, a selling opportunity is probably upcoming amid gold bug bravado and pomp (oms) because the fundamentals are not yet in order. (more…)

The Macro View: Amigos Ride On

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As symbolized by the 3 Amigos, the macro backdrop is riding on to its destiny. That forward destiny is a top in stocks vs. gold (Amigo 1), a rise in long-term interest rates to potential if not probable limits (Amigo 2) and an end to the yield curve’s flattening trend (Amigo 3).

When our zany friends complete the journey, big changes are likely in the macro markets.

Let’s take a checkup on each Amigo and consider some implications as well. (more…)

Semi Canary Still Chirping, But He’s Gonna Croak in 2018

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Since January 2013 we have been using the worldwide Semiconductor Equipment industry as a leader within the Semiconductor sector, which is an economic cyclical leader itself. That month we noted a positive move in Equipment bookings, which became a (3 month) trend that spring. This trend was used to project positive economic signals to come.

Through some turbulence in 2014 and 2015 the sector has remained on ‘economic up’ along with our cross reference indicator, the Palladium/Gold ratio right up to the current time as the economic Canary in a Coal Mine has kept on chirping.

But on November 21, two days before the sector topped I derisively poked at the mainstream media for hyping the Semiconductor Equipment sector with its bold headline… Fund manager looks beyond ‘FAANG’ stocks and finds even bigger winners for 2018. Talk about eyeball harvesting and greed stimulation. (more…)

Ever Been Part of a Melt-Up?

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This morning I noted that I did not appreciate seeing Jeremy Grantham’s note dismissed even in the slightest way and without rancor by a Biiwii author. His intro was “Here we go with the “melt-up” meme again.”, which I felt was not appropriate for our purposes, coming as it did from a writer who was cautionary all through 2017.

Look, I was pretty sure I was going to be wrong about a Q4 market top long before Q4 ended. I was led to believe that through subsequent information and analysis, most notably delivered by the 3 Amigos, who will ride bullish until their respective journeys end. At the time of the Q4 cycle forecast however, we noted that a roll over into a significant correction (at least) could actually be healthy for the market’s overall long-term bull. We also noted how a building mania would either precede the bull’s end or make the next correction much worse than had we had a top of some kind in Q4 2017. (more…)