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.

Testing The Weekly Middle Band Again

By -

I was saying in my last post before the open on Tuesday that if SPX kept testing the daily middle band as resistance every day then another attempt to break back above it was likely and we saw a modest close back over the daily middle band at the close on Tuesday. That followed through to the upside yesterday and yesterday’s close was a confirming close back over the daily middle band, now in the 4506 area, and a test of main resistance at the weekly middle band, now in the 4583 area.

SPX daily BBs chart:

(more…)

Knock Knock

By -

We did our monthly free public Chart Chat at theartofchart.net at 4pm EST on Sunday looking at the options on equity indices as well as looking at the usual wide range of other markets. If you’d like to watch the recording that you can do that here or on our February Free Webinars page.

At the closing print of January an RSI 5 sell signal fixed on the SPX monthly chart. There was already an RSI 14 sell signal fixed but the RSI 5 sell signal is a much more reliable and shorter term signal that has much improved the odds that SPX will deliver the ideal backtest of the 3800 – 3900 area that I’ve been writing about regularly since my August 6th post last year.

(more…)

Break And Rejection

By -

Note from Tim: I woke up inexcusably late (6 a.m.) and was flabbergasted and absolutely stunned to see futures all red, at least for the moment. So this is what a bear market feels like, eh? I thought so. Anyway, I’m going to get off stage and let Jack to the talking, since I’ve got bulls to slay.

I was saying yesterday that if there is a rejection on the day after a break back up over a middle band, it is generally on the next candle, and we saw that yesterday. I also said that after a rejection there is generally a follow-through to the downside, and we’ve been seeing that on ES overnight so far.

(more…)

The January Barometer

By -

I’ve been promising a post talking about the January Barometer, which is a statistic from the Stock Trader’s Almanac, something that I have been buying every year for many years as it has a lot of very useful information for traders and investors.

This statistic looks at all Januarys that have closed down since 1950 and what happened over the rest of the year from there, and on those years overall. The stats for the rest of the year are that 59.7% of them close down for the overall year, and 48.7% close the year lower than that close at the end of January, which was at 4515.55 this year of course.

(more…)

Finely Balanced

By -

In my last post I was looking at strong daily lower band rides on SPX that have the daily lower band ride as intraday resistance, rather than as support as would be the case on a standard daily lower band ride, and I used a previous instance from September as an example. Interestingly the path then taken by this band ride was similar to that last example, with the daily candle on Monday punching down through the 3sd lower band and then closing back above it, also generating a bullish daily high volume spike, then the daily candle on Tuesday being an inside day trading part of intraday back over the daily lower band, then the daily candle on Wednesday opening an closing back above the daily middle band.

(more…)