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.

VIX a Warning Sign for S&P 500 (by Mike Paulenoff)

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The hourly relationship between the Volatility Index (VIX) and S&P 500 (SPX) is acting strange. On the one hand, the SPX has thrust to new recovery highs off of the July low today, yet as we speak the VIX is at 22.12, much higher than it was at the Sept 14 low of 20.85. Huh?

If the SPX is at least 1% higher than it was on 9/14, but the VIX actually is showing more fear than I would have expected (the VIX should be considerably lower), then we need to take note that the “Fear Index” might be telling us that there IS something to fear as the SPX climbs from current levels.

Right now, I consider the behavior of the VIX a warning sign, not an SPX sell signal. However, a climb in the VIX above key near-term resistance at 22.80 technically will begin to indicate that the SPX is getting increasingly risky for holders of long positions.

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Originally published on MPTrader.com.

Chart on BMY (Mike Paulenoff)

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Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) has climbed to a new recovery and new 2 3/4-year high at 27.26 (so far) today, which has triggered new projections into the 28.00-29.00 target zone in the upcoming weeks and months.

The BMY situation just could be a perfect storm: strong fundamentals coupled with bullish technicals. Indeed, just yesterday Barron’s Weekday trader posted a very supportive article concluding that even though BMY is trading at a relatively high multiple (for Big Pharma) of 12 X forward earnings, the premium is “well deserved,” largely because BMY has one of the industry’s strongest pipelines and lots of cash.

From my perspective, it is always better to have bullish fundamentals supporting the chart pattern, which appears to be the case with BMY. From a near-term technical perspective, as long as the recent two-week support area, in general — and today’s pivot low at 26.89, in particular — remain intact, I will consider BMY to be extremely bullish.

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Originally published on MPTrader.com.