Slope of Hope Blog Posts

This is the heart and soul of the web site. Here we have literally tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. You can also click on any category icon to see posts tagged with that particular category.

True Believer Syndrome

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I’m going to start with a tale from about 180 years ago. In the early 1840s, a religious leader named William Miller believed the second coming of Jesus was foretold in the Bible with mathematical accuracy, and using a myriad of verses and tidbits from the Bible, he sought to compute as closely as possible when exactly J.C. was going to come back.

prophetcy

At first, he didn’t offer anything very exact:

Using an interpretive principle known as the day-year principle, Miller, along with others, interpreted a prophetic “day” to read not as a 24-hour period, but rather as a calendar year. Miller became convinced that the 2,300-day period started in 457 B.C. with the decree to rebuild Jerusalem by Artaxerxes I of Persia. His interpretation led him to believe and promote the year 1843. Despite the urging of his supporters, Miller never announced an exact date for the expected Second Advent. But he did narrow the time period to sometime in the Jewish year 5604, stating: “My principles in brief, are, that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.” (more…)

What Does The Analyst Who Called For The 2016-2017 Market Rally Say About 2018?

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By Avi Gilburt, ElliottWaveTrader.net

As Ecclesiastes notes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” This, too, applies to the stock market.

The average investor trap is the same throughout whatever period you wish to review. Markets become overexuberant, see a correction, sentiment resets, and markets rally on to their next phase of overexuberance. It is really that simple. Yet, we overcomplicate matters by relying on economics and fundamentals, which have proven to be relatively useless at major market turning points.

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The Metals Market Is A Mess

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When I sat down to review how I can update the analysis I provided to our members in my mid-week update, I realized that there is not much more technical analysis I am able to add to what I wrote to our membership in my mid-week analysis, so I am going to repeat it here, with some additional general thoughts below:

While I strive to provide deep insight into the markets I track for you, I am somewhat at a loss in this region with the metals, especially with the various charts presenting quite differently.  

For those that have followed me for years, you know when I am bullish and you know when I am bearish.  And, for the great majority of the time, my bullishness and bearishness have been appropriate to prepare for impending price action.  However, we are now in a region of uncertainty, and I don’t think I can classify it any better than that at this point in time. (more…)

Anyone Else Want To Call For A Market Crash?

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Hindenburg omens. Market valuations. Record low volatility. And, I am only scratching the surface of all the reasons paraded before investors as to why this market is, in their opinion, “too high.”

So, is this time different? Have we finally conquered the business cycle and the stock market will rally on forever?

Absolutely not.

But, when article writers suggest that their old methods of market evaluation have failed them, and then conclude that we need to prepare for a market crash, it makes me question the logical if/then perspective of their analysis. (more…)

Nothing Can Bring Down This Market Except . . .

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This past week, we experienced yet another horrendous terrorist attack in New York City. And, amazingly, just like what occurred after several other terrorist attacks that have been experienced over the last year, the market rallied right after the attack.

It has almost gotten to the point that people now expect the stock market to rally after a terrorist attack. Have we really become this warped in our thinking? Must we hold fast to ridiculous notions that news is what drives the stock market to the point that we have to resign ourselves to believing that the market will rally “because” of a terrorist attack? Do you not see how ridiculous these perspectives really are?

Yet, if the market dropped after a terrorist attack, there is no question in my mind that every analyst and their mother would be absolutely certain that the market dropped specifically due to the terrorist attack. Every article the next day would have been pointing to the attack being the definitive “cause” of the market drop. And, if I then challenged this false exogenous causation theory, the response I would receive is “don’t you believe your eyes?” Yet, not a single analyst dares to suggest that the markets are rallying because of news of terrorist attacks despite seeing many instances of this occurring over the last two years. Do, they not believe their eyes? (more…)