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.

Stock Market Sentiment, Re-Fueled Along the Way

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It’s a big picture view with a story to tell. People are micro-managing the VIX, talking about how it either doesn’t work anymore, if it ever did, or is forecasting extreme doom imminently (through investor complacency). But what is “imminently”? Is it next month or is it the 2-3 years that this indicator often wallows along the bottom of its support zone before overseeing a coming Armageddon? Sure, it started wallowing in the zone back in 2013, but then the ‘fuel stops’ that were ultimately bullish (the 2010, 2011 and 2015 corrections) cleared the overhead inventory of investors out of the markets.

Sometimes you’ve got to let a picture marinate and tell its story, not impose your (relatively) hypersensitive brainwaves on it. The story this thing is telling is that Armageddon ’08 surely was a massive sentiment reset (of much greater power and significance than I originally thought it would be, when I got bullish in early 2009). On top of that big sentiment event that cleaned the markets out to a fully sanitized state, there were 3 subsequent eruptions of bearishness that may have reinforced the message of the 2008 disaster, sternly reminding casino patrons that this thing is not safe. (more…)

U.S. Stock Market and Gold, Post Tomahawks and MOAB

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It happens when inflammatory events (usually political, terror or war related, but also including things like Ebola, Bird Flu and the like) crop up; stocks go down and hysteria starts to build.  The mainstream media jump aboard and next thing you know you’ve got people heading for the exits… right into the next bottom.  In the case of the current corrective consolidation, a disappointment in the Trump administration’s Healthcare follies rolled right into the war-like events in Syria and Afghanistan.  Presto!  A much needed correction of the over-bullishness was on.

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Stocks, Bonds and Gold; Snapshot of a Shifting Macro

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Over the last year we transitioned from the stock market angst of 2015 to the bullish breakout of 2016.  For NFTRH, the real proof in the pudding was the ramp up in the cyclical Semiconductor sector’s Equipment sub-segment (Applied Materials, Lam Research and the like).  Specifically, we tracked a trend in Equipment orders and projected a bullish Semi sector a year ago.  The logical extension of this was a bullish stock market, since the Semis are a leader.

What a difference a year makes.  Reference AMAT Chirps, B2B Ramps, Yellen Hawks and Gold’s Fundamentals Erode from last May.  Our best target for the SOX index was around 940 and late-arriving momentum players (and their ‘quant’ machines) have driven the index beyond reason of late, to a high of 1017 last month.  It is time for a cool down in this leader; potentially a real deep freeze because it has been running way too hot.

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Jeez Louise, Bonds Breaking Out?

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Look, we are all wrong sometimes.  That is because the markets are this way one day, that way the next and then something else the day after that.  That is why we need bigger picture plans.

I for instance, have been guarded on the gold sector and technically at least, still need to see some upside parameters taken out.  But today’s market information brings a potential fundamental underpinning as the stock market flirts with some important parameters of its own.

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‘Trump Trade’ Intact!

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The S&P 500’s ‘Trump Trade’ is still intact per a chart guy actually worth listening to, Rich Ross, who I met 7 years ago when he worked at the firm (Auerbach-Grayson) run by my late friend, Jonathan Auerbach.  Nice guy with nice, clear charts and no need to over complicate things.

Here he shows SPY above its SMA 50, which folks, is one of the reasons why I covered my own short positions.  The other reasons were that the SOX was still on its short-term moving averages and Goldman and the Financials were smashing into lateral support and getting oversold.

This one chart shows why ‘the Trump trade’ is still intact (video link) (more…)