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.

Treasury Bonds and the Fed

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Excerpted from the Market Internals segment of this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 522 (Oct. 21). The segment focused on the bond market and its macro signaling this week. There was more to the segment, including US and global negative divergences in play to long-term yields (positive divergences for bonds) despite the bullish technical situation, and some possible implications/downside targets for the stock market.

Treasury Bonds and the Fed

The technical signs [of a potential bond bear market/breakout in yields] are there, but…

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Trump Bemoans Fed Rate Hikes and He’s Got a Point… Sort Of

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See…

Trump delivers another attack on Fed, calling central bank the biggest threat

Here is the entire article (blurb)…

President Donald Trump unleashed another attack on the Federal Reserve, calling the central bank his “biggest threat,” in an interview he gave to Fox Business Network. “My biggest threat is the Fed,” Trump said, according to excerpts released by the network ahead of an interview to air at 8 p.m. Eastern. “Because the Fed is raising rates too fast and it’s independent so I don’t speak to them but I’m not happy with what he’s doing because it’s going too fast because you looked at the last inflation numbers they are very low.” When pointed out to Trump that he nominated Jerome Powell instead of Janet Yellen, the president said he wasn’t blaming anyone. “I put him there and maybe it’s right maybe it’s wrong but I put him there.” He also referenced the other nominees to the Fed he’s made. “I put a couple of other people there I’m not so happy with too but for the most part I’m very happy with people.”

“Because the Fed is raising rates too fast…”

The 2 year note players in the bond market are and have been raising rates too fast if anybody is; and I don’t think they are. But Trump does have a point in that it appears the Fed is playing catch up on his watch after being way too slack on the previous administration’s watch (as I used to routinely bitch about). (more…)

Financial Cold War

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As we crossed the finish line last week into the longest bull market in human history, a question that has been on my mind for years came bubbling to the surface again: if this is so easy, why didn’t the governments of the world do it before? In other words, since it’s been proved quite clearly that central bankers can prop up equity markets around the world, as well as public sentiment, why did it take them so long to figure it out?

Were they really that dim? Why would the governments, and all the self-interested individuals which comprise them, put themselves through the financial horrors of 2007/2008, the crash of 1987, the Internet bubble collapse of 2000, or the grinding equities-are-dead market that lasted the entire 1970s? It doesn’t make any sense.

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