I wanted to talk a bit this morning about big highs and lows on SPX. Obviously the economy may well be going into recession, interest rates will likely rise a lot further over coming years, and that has to happen really because examples in history where inflation has been brought under control without interest rates higher than that inflation are rare. The world is also particularly vulnerable to high interest rates because after so many years of very low interest rates, levels of both public and private debt are extremely high, and rising interest rates over time will likely force many people, companies and governments into defaulting on their debt. It is going to be rough.
(more…)Slope of Hope Blog Posts
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Through A Glass Darkly
SPX broke down and has retested the retracement low, as have NDX and Dow as well, but not yet IWM. This brings SPX and the other US indices to the key inflection point this year, where we see whether the move so far this year has been the formation of large bull flags setting up retests of the all time highs, or whether US indices are going to break down further directly.
What we have on the bull side here are possible buy signals now brewing on the weekly chart and clear high quality bull flags formed on SPX and Dow particularly, as well as on many other individual stocks and ETFs of course. On the bear side we have the worsening economy, rising interest rates and embedded inflation that the Fed are now admitting is not transitory. I would point out though that a retest of the all time highs might well not be a bullish development, as that might make the second highs on double tops large enough to then potentially retrace most or even all of the gains made since the 2020 low.
(more…)Testing The Middle Band
Yesterday’s bearish historical stats delivered hard and broke the bull flag setups that I posted in the morning. SPX is now testing the 4000 area and, if that breaks, the next target will likely be a retest of the retracement low at 3810.32.
I still like all the bull flags from the high here, but if SPX reaches the retracement low and continues down hard, there is an obvious target for that move. The H&S I have drawn on SPX from the high isn’t high quality, but it isn’t bad, and has a very obvious target in the 3400 area, which is a significant area because that would be a backtest of the pre-2000 crash all time high. In my view that would be the obvious target on a break below 3600.
(more…)Consolidation
SPX has been consolidating for a few days now, and generally speaking a consolidation like this leans bullish. I gave the ideal target for this rally at the weekly middle band and that remains the case in my view. That is now in the 4294 area.
SPX weekly chart:

Marking Time
In my last post a week ago I was talking about the prospects on SPX for testing the weekly middle band, currently at 4312, on this rally, with particular reference to the very historically bullish two first days of June, which were the last two days. Unfortunately for the bulls, these were both wasted in a sideways consolidation, so reaching that target now looks more doubtful, and the odds of a break down before that target is reached have increased.
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