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.

Tidbits of Progress

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Well, Wednesday wasn’t so bad. Hopefully the Tim-Knight-Sullen-o-Meter compelled a few aggressive souls to short the market early on Wednesday. The boys at Elliott Wave are still calling for a pop on the /ES to 4244 before this thing exhausts itself. I hope not; I really don’t think I could stomach a 130 point rally on it.

Anyway, for the immediate moment, we are now in our 8th day of captivity. We are all banging around a teensy weensy little range, but a point made here that I agree with is……….at the least bulls seem INCAPABLE of pushing this pig any higher. Here is the Dow Industrials ETF:

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IYR Marches On

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It seems like we’ve been talking about the IYR analog since John Kennedy was in office. This thing moves so damn slowly. The flip side is that if the pattern does complete, the move will likewise be powerful and persistent.

As a reminder, the “analog” actually doesn’t exist anymore, but only because the recent topping pattern is so much better than what took place pre-Covid. The trio of exponential moving averages is definitely behaving itself properly.

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ETF Focus: Outside the U.S.

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Preface to all four parts: This weekend, I’ve taken some favorite exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and broken them into groups. I’ll share a few thoughts about each of these below, and as always, clicking on any chart will make it fill your screen, whatever size that may be.

Let’s jump outside North America and look at the big funds. The emerging markets has been incredibly weak for a very long time, and it couldn’t even muster getting past that horizontal last week, even at the market’s strongest.

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ETF Focus: Sectors

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Preface to all four parts: This weekend, I’ve taken some favorite exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and broken them into groups. I’ll share a few thoughts about each of these below, and as always, clicking on any chart will make it fill your screen, whatever size that may be.

Let’s look at some specific sectors. The first is a favorite, which is the homebuilders. It has been in an ascending channel for many years, and it has completed a remarkably good topping pattern within the confines of that channel. I believe it could get as low as the lower trendline, ultimately.

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ETF Focus: Energy

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Preface to all four parts: This weekend, I’ve taken some favorite exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and broken them into groups. I’ll share a few thoughts about each of these below, and as always, clicking on any chart will make it fill your screen, whatever size that may be.

This is one sector where I’ve been whipped for the past few weeks. Commodities – -energy in particular – – simply keep bullying their way higher, almost without a downtick to be seen.

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