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.

Perspective and Market Notes

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The opening segment of this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole (NFTRH 412) was intended to be a quick blurb but went on to become a five page exercise. It is shared publicly not so much because it is hard core analysis (which the rest of the report took care of), but because after a week like last week I think being a little wordy can be for the better.

I had a difficult week last week; a couple things had gone wrong and my schedule was just ridiculous. On Wednesday I was feeling pretty stressed out and wondering why I just can’t seem to catch a break. Then I looked up and saw a man with two hooks for hands walk by. It was almost as if he were sent into my view to straighten me out. screen-shot-2016-09-10-at-6-32-49-pm

Another source of perspective is a more obvious one. Today being September 11, I would venture that we all remember where we were and what we were doing on that day in 2001. I was working at my company. It was a normal morning and then it seemed like the world just stopped, except for the jet fighters that were putting a lock down to the sky above us. It seemed like the world then magically came together for a few days… fast forward to today’s divisive, sad and hateful political theater.

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Gold: The Good and the Not Yet Good

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The Good

Thursday’s ISM report was Thing 1 in improving the backdrop for gold. But it was a small Thing. Friday’s August Payrolls report was Thing 2, and it was a better Thing. Gold and especially the gold mining sector are invigorated fundamentally during economic easing, not during economic growth phases, inflationary or otherwise.

In this post we’ll review two of the charts (gold vs. commodities and gold vs. stock markets) we have used since before the new gold bull market began in order to update some important macro fundamentals. Most of the ratios on these charts have not broken down even as the economy and with it, stock markets have experienced a recent bounce, which we anticipated through various signals belabored repeatedly, since before the BREXIT hysterics.

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ISM Manufacturing is Wobbling @ 49.4%

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The weak ISM headline number (PMI) was an excuse for bonds and precious metals to bounce and the US dollar to drop today. It evidently inspired wild eyed casino patrons to unwind recent positions (short gold, long USD for instance) as the great and powerful Fed now has reason to stand down in September. Such is life in the casino; always a story, always a play, always manic, always addicted to short-term news and media inputs.

Before looking at the particulars of ISM, let’s review the Machine Tools sales data that we have not looked at in a while. It is and has been W.E.A.K. for years now, outside of the traditional year end tax mitigation bounce. Data through June (source: EDA):

machine tools

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Semiconductor Sector, Updated

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We have been using the Semis as a one of several economic signposts, and as an investment/trading destination since the Semi Equipment ‘bookings’ category in the Book-to-Bill ratio began to ramp up several months ago. But those who say that Semiconductors are subject to pricing pressures are correct. It is a segment in which people need to be discrete with their investments. NFTRH 410 updated some details about this market leader.

sox vs. ndx

sox vs. spx

Semiconductor Sector

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Why the Convoluted Message From Yellen?

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Why the tough talk out of one side of her mouth and ‘other policy tools’ language out of the other (ref. Yellen Lays Out Tools… )? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it has some thing to do with this…

The stock market has merrily followed money supply aggregates upward since 2009. When money supply decelerates the market corrects. When money supply ramps upward the market ramps upward. Money supply has been rolling over since 2014, which was not coincidentally when the first tremors began for the stock market in its recently completed top (that wasn’t). From SlopeCharts

s&p 500 and monetary base

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