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.

Taking Stock on Crypto

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In my last post on Monday I was looking at the rally setup on Crypto which was decent but looked fragile, and that setup didn’t deliver, with Bitcoin (BTCUSD), Solana (SOLUSD) and Ethereum (ETHUSD) making lower lows and those bottoming setups disintegrating.

I want to have a look at the bigger picture on Crypto today as there are some reasons to think that a larger low may be forming, though with Crypto tied as closely as it is to equity prices, there is an obvious large risk that further equity declines may drag Crypto down into a larger decline.

That risk is very clear on the chart below, where you can see that historically Bitcoin regularly makes a high before equities, but tends strongly to make significant lows with equities.

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A Tale Of Two Tickers – NVDA & TSLA

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This is my first post in a while looking at individual stocks, but I used to do a lot of these, and this is the first of regular posts on these in the future. Today I want to look at the two stocks in The Magnificent Seven which currently have the best and the worst looking prospects over coming months.

The one with the best looking chart is definitely NVDA. Looking at the hourly chart I have an H&S that has broken down with a target in the 100 area and a very possible bull flag falling wedge that has been forming as it declines. I’ve drawn in a couple of possible support trendlines on that and if the bull flag continues to form it would ideally now return to flag resistance, currently in the 136.5 area but declining rapidly, and then make a last leg down into the H&S target in the 100 area. We’ll see how that goes.

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Burning Down The House

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In my last post on Friday I was looking at a decent quality rally setup and that was looking good on Friday night, but Trump’s interviews on Sunday delivered a big decline yesterday. Trump’s comments in those interviews however were very illuminating about the likely direction on tariff policy over the next few months.

So, what did the interviews tell us? Well firstly Trump is very keen on imposing tariffs on most of the trading partners of the US and seems to be convinced that will bring in a lot of extra money for the US. I think he is seeing that as a heavy tax that the US can impose on trading partners for the privilege of trading with the US, and we have already seen that he seems to think that this won’t come at a heavy cost to the US.

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Decision Time on Crypto Rally

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In my post on Friday I was talking about the possible rally setup on Crypto and, while Crypto has gone down over the weekend, the rally setup has improved. It looks fragile though, and would rapidly fall in quality with a significant decline from here.

In the meantime, Trump was interviewed yesterday and was talking about further tariffs he was looking at against overseas trade partners. He was asked whether these policies might trigger a recession and said it was possible while seeming very relaxed about that prospect. This was not encouraging for equities and is fuelling further speculation that the current bull markets in Crypto and equities may now be over. I’m wondering more about that too but we’ll see how this develops.

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A Leap Of Faith

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Back in 2011/2 I was chatting to a guy on a blog and he said that the problem with gold was that the price of gold was only what someone was prepared to pay for it. I replied that he had come very close to a huge insight into nature of markets, but had failed to grasp it at the last moment. That is because the truth is that anything is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, and what they would be paying for it with was also only worth what someone is prepared to pay for that. To that extent markets are based on faith, rather than value, as value itself is heavily based on faith.

What does this mean? Well it means sentiment and expectation are very important, and uncertainty depresses markets, and a big shock in confidence can cause big market declines or crashes.

How is this relevant? Well there is a nice looking rally setup here at a big inflection point, but for the rally to happen markets will need to make a leap of faith.

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