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.

9-Year U.S. Bull Market Run: Will We See a 10th?

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Each candle on the following five charts of the Major U.S. Indices represents a period of one year.

You can see at a glance that we’re still ensconced in a bull market that began in 2009 when the Fed first began their QE monetary policy.

In fact, both Tech indices closed at new all-time highs on Friday and haven’t experienced much of a pullback, so far, this year, compared with the other three relative to last year’s candle (thanks, in large part, to the FAANGs, as shown on the daily chartgrid below)…indicating that the bulls are still in charge of equities, overall.

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More Volatility Ahead for Italy’s FTSE MIB Index

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Italy’s FTSE MIB Index still remains more than 60% below its record high reached pre-2007 financial crisis, as shown on the monthly chart below.

It’s facing major overhead resistance with the convergence of a triple top price formation, 40% Fibonacci retracement level, and the lower edge of its original uptrending channel around 24,568, which is still a long way above its current price, but which may act as a depressant and contribute to volatile swings until it eventually retests that level and either breaks and holds above, or is rejected.

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HOG-Tied

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Harley-Davidson Inc. (HOG) may become a casualty of President Trump’s “trade war” policies. In particular, his latest threat to impose a 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminum has produced a retaliatory threat against the U.S. by Europe on companies such as HOG.

No doubt, this new policy, if pursued by the U.S., would be argued before the WTO and have greater implications on other countries and goods/services. My post of November 12, 2016 made mention of the need for the new Trump administration and Congress to consider a number of factors so as not to, potentially, cause economic imbalances and a catastrophic domino effect on the rest of the world. This is a complicated issue and will bring forth many positions/arguments/considerations and may cause further instability in world equity, currency, financial, bond, and commodity markets until a resolution is reached. (more…)

Canada’s TSX: Isolated

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The monthly chart below of Canada’s TSX Composite Index (TSX) shows that price has become isolated outside of several long-term intersecting trendlines and is caught up within an expanding triangle formation that began forming in December 2016 (right after the U.S. Presidential election).

Expanding triangle formations typically represent trendless, volatile periods of consolidation and this type of range trading will continue until price either breaks and holds above or below this triangle. I’ve no reason to doubt that this will be the case here…particularly, in view of the following.

Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s recently-released 2018 budget is, in my opinion, a weak political budget, not a strong economic budget. There does not appear to be any kind of “backstop” fiscal measure/proposal to prevent or minimize economic headwinds/shocks that may arise from global or domestic pressures/issues, as well as current influences such as a wildly fluctuating Canadian dollar, wildly fluctuating commodity prices, rising global and domestic inflation, tightening Central Bank monetary policies, rising interest rates, high personal debt, anaemic wage growth, a weakening Canadian GDP (2017 Q4 GDP was 1.7%, below 2% estimates, and 2018 Q1 is not anticipated to be strong), etc. (more…)

S&P 500 Index: Near-Term Trendline Apex Support Levels

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The following daily chart (and close-up shot) of the S&P 500 Index is criss-crossed by a number of trendlines. There are a couple of near-term price levels where these intersect at their apex (2730 and 2685). Should both of these be breached with force, we’ll likely see another leg down.

My last post referencing the SPX:VIX ratio offers further details that would corroborate such a downward event…worth monitoring in the days/weeks ahead.

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