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.

Seven Percent And Counting

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Stan and I did our free monthly Chart Chat at theartofchart.net yesterday. If you missed that you can see the recording on our February Free Webinars page.

I was looking for a decline of more than 5% from the high on SPX to signal that the market was normalising into a more two way trading environment, and that has been hit today, and then some. On the video below I was noting the large amount of positive divergence on various charts and liking the odds for a rally that has not yet materialised, with SPX punching 1% below the daily lower band at the LOD so far.

This is impressive stuff, and the advances/declines level today is suggesting that we may see a repeat of Friday afternoon with a close at or near the low. Intraday Video from theartofchart.net – Update on ES, NQ and TF: (more…)

Well That Delivered Faster Than Expected

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Stan and I are doing our free monthly Chart Chat on Sunday at theartofchart.net. We’ll be covering the usual wide range of instruments and you can register for that on our February Free Webinars page.

No futures charts or video this afternoon as I tripped over this morning while trying to find somewhere in an unfamiliar city using Google Maps. My phone smashed and that, needless to say, is my primary authentication device for accessing my futures charts.

Only a temporary setback as I have a very good iPhone/iPad repair place, and I am a favorite customer with a bulk discount due to my household having a lot of apple devices, mainly being used by three rather careless/clumsy kids. I’ll have the iPhone back tomorrow so I’m inclined to interpret this as a sign from above suggesting that I might consider going to bed early tonight. For a fact, I am rather tired so I think I’ll be doing that. (more…)

Likely Daily Middle Band Test Next

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Stan and I are doing our free monthly Chart Chat on Sunday at theartofchart.net. We’ll be covering the usual wide range of instruments and you can register for that on our February Free Webinars page.

ES/SPX just consolidating here at the moment, though if there is a break and conversion of the 50 hour MA now at 2841 that would open a test of the open breakaway gap down from 2853.53. In the absence of a break down the obvious next target would be the daily middle band in the 2800 area. Intraday Video from theartofchart.net – Update on ES, NQ and TF:

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Island Top on SPX

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Well obviously SPX didn’t do the higher high that I would have preferred, and this morning’s gap down broke down through rising wedge support and also gapped back through the open breakaway gap up from 2839.25. This currently leaves a decent quality island top on SPX and an open breakaway gap down from 2853.53 that I wouldn’t expect to see filled until the current decline is finished.

No clear reversal pattern yet, though there is a poor to medium quality H&S option that I have marked on the chart below. The minimum targets I would generally be looking for on a break of a rising wedge like this are the 38.2% or 50% retracement targets in the 2797 or 2773 areas respectively. SPX 60min chart:

180130 SPX 60min (more…)

Non-Verbal Communication

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I had an interesting question on my twitter that I answered this morning, and it was in response to my tweet at the open on Friday saying that both ES and NQ had formed clear bullish triangles and that I was expecting ATH retests on both. The question was from later in the day when the ATH retests had been done and both indices continued up in a trend day. The question was why the outlook had changed, and my reply this morning was to point out that I had tweeted that I was expecting the retests, but that I had never added that ES and NQ would reverse there. The outlook had not therefore changed. I had expanded on that in Friday’s intraday video before the main move up, but there’s only so much you can put into a tweet. What was interesting about the question is how people read beyond what is actually said. Something I see regularly. (more…)