Boy – ‘Do not try to bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead …. only try to realize the truth.’
Neo – ‘What truth?’
Boy – ‘There is no spoon’
From The Matrix – 1999.
(more…)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.
The First Five Trading Days Of January
The holidays are ending and volume should be coming back into markets next week as players return. New Year’s Day on Wednesday is obviously a holiday as well, and the five trading days after that will be closely watched to deliver an indication of how the rest of 2020 might go. I’ll be looking at that stat closely later in this post but first I’ll review SPX and NDX and the position as traders return for the last two trading days of 2019. I would note again that the last trading day of the year is the only historically strongly bearish day in December, with SPX closing down 67% of the time, and Nasdaq down 15 of the last 19 years.
(more…)Not Even A Mouse
Well the holidays are upon us, and many of those of us with lives, or even just social lives, have taken a couple of weeks off to do non-market stuff. Even the algos seem suspiciously quiet and may be taking a few days off too. I’m still here because …. well ……. it’s my job, and someone has to stick around to switch off the lights and lock the doors after the last buyer has departed for the holidays. In the meantime I’m doing an update for anyone still around to read it.
(more…)All Targets Great And Small
A week ago I was looking at upside targets on ES and the extended target on ES was in the 3180 target, made by the close of the week. I had other upside targets too with an extended IHS target on NQ that made target at the same time, and bull flag high retests on DAX and ESTX50 that were also made. I have run out of upside targets across the main equity indices that I watch and the December high on SPX is either in or should be close.
In the short term there is an open 60min sell signal and an attractive trendline target currently in the 3150 ES area, ideally to be hit on Monday before a high retest, though there is an SPX trendline target below in the 3155 area that may hold instead, as SPX is the technical dog to the ES tail from a charting perspective.
(more…)Coming Soon – Mean Reversion
I’ve been talking in my last few posts about expecting a significant high at the end of November, to be followed by a downward cycle into April 2020, and here we are at the end of November, so how’s that looking here? Well as it happens a rare and significant event happened at the close today that confirms the inflection point here and leans strongly towards seeing that retracement next.
(more…)So Far, So Good
I remember my father giving me an example a long time ago of the dangers of forecasting through extrapolation, and it was to imagine a man who had stepped off the top of the Empire State Building, and was overheard to murmur as he fell past the 51st story ‘So Far, So Good’. The point is that regardless of how well the first part of a plan develops, one always needs to consider the possibility that it may wander significantly off track by the end. We shall see how the rest of the plan for November develops. 🙂
(more…)Upside Targets
As I was saying in my last post, SPX should be back into an upwards cycle by the end of October and that would be likely to end by the end of November. SPX has duly now made new all time highs and is likely to go higher. Let’s have a look at the most obvious target area.
On SPX the initial rising wedge from the 2346 low is likely expanding into a larger rising wedge. Rising wedge support is now therefore in the 2915 area. The obvious overall target would then be the original rising wedge resistance, now in the 3110 area, and due to be in the 3130 area by the end of November. I would note the interesting fibonacci relationship here, in that if you take the move from the December low to the June low, and then add the same again to the June low, then the sum is 3111, which strengthens this area as a swing high target.
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