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.

Thanksgiving Thoughts – Shorter Term

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November is about to end and SPX is likely at the time of writing to do something not previously done in the last twenty five years, which is to close a long way above the monthly upper band, currently 3566 area, only three months above the last strong punch close above in August. What does this mean?

Well on NDX this would give about 40-45% odds that the market would then deliver a series of closes at or above the monthly upper band in coming months, but while that is possible on SPX, historically there would be little precedent for it. The odds still favor a close at or below the monthly upper band at the end of December, at which point it would be unlikely to be over 3600.

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Thanksgiving Thoughts – Longer Term

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I was going to do a longer post today but I’ve decided to split the post in two, covering the longer term in this post and looking shorter term in a follow up post to be published tomorrow.

In my last post I was looking, among other things, at the SPX monthly chart and noting that if there was a monthly close significantly above the monthly upper band (currently 3570 area) at the end of November, then that would be the first time in the last twenty five years that had happened less than six months after a recent strong punch close above the monthly upper band (in August). The monthly close for November is at the close on Monday, so that is now only just over a trading day away in regular trading hours. Could it happen? Yes, and this has certainly been a very strange year both in the world and on the markets so we’ll see.

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So Here We Are

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Firstly my apologies for the wait since my last post. I’m currently getting divorced, which isn’t much fun, and the presidential election was so polarising in the US that I was getting the impression that if I mentioned that the weather was getting chillier as the season changed, then some would feel that was a comment on the election and get offended. The election is finally over….ish, and I think it’s safe to start writing again about markets.

So in my last post I was writing about the bull flags that would likely deliver retests of the all time high as and when they broke up. Those evolved into larger bullish patterns, a bull pennant on SPX, a bull flag on INDU, a possibly still forming bullish pattern on NDX, and on Monday those broke up into new all time highs on SPX, Dow 30 and RUT, but not so far on NDX. Equity indices are still retracing from those Monday highs, so what should we expect next?

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Onward and Upward

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Last week I was looking at the IHS patterns that had broken up on SPX and NDX with targets at retests of their respective all time highs. We’ve seen some retracement this week but overall nothing has changed and I am still looking for the same targets, though the retracement has given more form to the current moves and is giving some clues as to where these moves will find resistance.

Starting with ES, where after the grind up on Monday I posted a chart on the subscriber twitter feed at theartofchart.net showing the rising channel established on ES Dec from the September lows, and with a slight adjustment that channel has held into the end of the week with a test of the low before the open yesterday morning. Resistance on that channel is now in the 3600 area so the IHS target is within that range.

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In The Inflection Point

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I was looking at the inflection point setting up here in my post yesterday and it is now fully set up and looking good. At this stage I am looking for either a break up towards a retest of the all time highs on both SPX and NDX, or a hard fail that delivers new retracements lows, though we could see a limited retracement here that preceded the break up.

On the SPX daily chart there is no current divergence but SPX is now testing and slightly over the daily upper band.

SPX daily chart:

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