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.

It’s Getting Tougher

By -

I have really been nailing US equity markets so far this year. I published a post on Wednesday 19th February, the day the SPX made the current all time high, looking at the high quality double top setups on SPX, QQQ and DIA, and the ok quality H&S on IWM, and all those topping patterns have now reached target with DIA, the last to reach target, hitting that on Friday.

I published a post on Monday 18th March looking at touches of the weekly 3sd lower band over the last few years and calling for a rally lasting at least a week or two based on the past history of similar setups on the weekly 3sd lower band, and we saw that too.

(more…)

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Support

By -

In my post on Wednesday last week I was looking at the bear flags formed on Bitcoin (BTCUSD), Solana (SOLUSD) and Ethereum (ETHUSD), and those have all since broken down, but in a way that looks as though we might see a rally shortly.

I was outlining a scenario for that rally to a friend a couple of days ago, but was thinking the setup would probably fall apart as equity indices fell hard, but with SPX down almost 10% since then the setup is still intact, so I’m going to look at that today.

(more…)

The Masque of the Red Death

By -

The title of this post is a reference to a story by Edgar Allen Poe, which I would strongly recommend and, not wishing to give much away in the way of spoilers, is about a very exclusive party given by a Prince Prospero that ended extremely badly for all participants. It seems an appropriate title today,

As I suspected Trump did go ahead with the April 2nd ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs and seems determined to persist with these for several months at least. In practice this is the largest peacetime tax hike on US citizens in history and it seems unlikely that this experiment will go well. Before I look at the markets today I’d like to put these tariffs into some factual and historical context.

(more…)

April Fools

By -

‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ – Alexander Pope

Here we are on the morning of ‘Liberation Day’ and it really does look as though the Trump Administration is planning to launch a trade war against the rest of the world today. I understand that is scheduled for 4pm EST this afternoon as the RTH market closes.

If Trump is right then, unlike any other instance where tariffs have been imposed in history, US trading partners will absorb the cost of tariffs and in effect the tariffs will be a tax on those trading partners for the privilege of trading with the US, while the decreased competitiveness of imports, even though those import prices will not have risen, will rebuild the US manufacturing base.

(more…)

Four Bear Markets and a Setup

By -

As I’ve been working on my post today to look at downside patterns on US equity indices I have realised that this too needs to be split into two posts, so this first TA post will just look at the historical and very compelling current setups on SPX, while the second post will also look at the current setups and targets on QQQ, DIA and IWM.

In my last post overnight, Brave New World, I was looking at the economic reasons why I think that the planned tariff war on the world due to start tomorrow may have a very serious economic impact, particularly on the US economy.

In this post I am looking at last four big bear markets / crash setups on SPX and how they played out, and looking at the setup and targets currently on SPX if we are about to see something similar play out here, as I think we well might.

(more…)