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.

Benpecked

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henpecked Benpecked (‘ben·pekd)

Definition

adjective

  1. (of a man stock trader) continually harassed or tormented by the persistent nagging of a woman central bank chairman (esp. his wife Ben Bernanke)

Ben-pecked

As I’ve discussed quite a bit lately, what makes the recent Sept
14-Nov 17th correction different from all other similar sell-offs in
recent years is the lack of fear this time around.  There are generally
two types of traders who short the market, other than commercial
hedgers:  The “permabears”, who always think the market is going to drop
and those more adept, flexible traders who are just as comfortable
trading the short side as the long side, depending on the charts,
valuation, and other market metrics.  I like to believe that I fall into
the latter categorization but I digress.

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The Bernanke Kaput

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ka·put: Broken and useless; no longer working and effective.

I’ve always been of the opinion that charts speak louder
than words.  Here are a few of the most recent US economic reports,
which really don’t need much of an explanation or technical expertise to
decipher.  The longer they bid the market up on the belief that
QEternity and the Bernanke Put Kaput will lift the stock
market forever, the larger the disconnect between equity prices and the
underlying economic fundamentals becomes.  The larger this disconnect
gets, the more powerful the reversion to the mean will be once it
finally manifests.  Have a nice weekend.

Randy Phinney, RSOTC.com


Economic reports 11-30-12

The Ending of Twist

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From MarketWatch

“The Federal Open Market Committee Fed’s bond-purchase
programs, known as Operation Twist, expires next month. Under the
program, the Fed has been buying long-term Treasurys and selling its
holdings of shorter-dated Treasurys, effectively “twisting” the yield
curve that charts the gap in yields between different maturities.

Investors expect the Fed to continue its buying of long-term
Treasurys while letting the short-term sales expire, in effect expanding
its program known as quantitative easing, or QE, beyond large-scale
purchases of mortgage-backed securities — something to which the Fed’s
committed to doing as long as necessary.”

Below is a look at what the Twist manipulation has done as various
items – and notably, gold – have been held in a corrective grip by the
“sanitized” aspect of Twist, which does not increase the money supply. 
It is of course bald faced (in that it is very official and not just in
the realm of Tin Foil Hatters) manipulation of something that has
traditionally been a ‘free market’ indicator of systemic stress or lack
thereof.

yield spread

Here’s a compelling view by a log scale chart of gold dutifully following the yield spread.

yield curve and gold

Both charts have been used in NFTRH, where we a deal in what is, not what should be.  What is
is a barbarous relic that also acts as monetary insurance and barometer
of systemic problems towing the line with a yield curve whose structure
has been manufactured.

What happens if they terminate (or are forced to terminate by lack of
short-term bond supply) this operation in December as the currently
announced Twist phase ends?  Well then, inflation may become just a
little bit more honest.

http://www.biiwii.com

Dow Theory Musings (by Springheel Jack)

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ES broke declining resistance overnight and we may be seeing the start of a move to test the highs, very possibly to make a double or M top for the retracement that I am expecting to see. The main alternate scenario is that the retracement low is now in and we are seeing the start of a new wave up and that's possible, but I'm leaning strongly against that at the moment. 

On the SPX 60min chart the retracement from the highs so far looks like a bull flag, which is a good reason to think that we might see a test of the highs soon. If this rising channel on SPX from the June low is going to hold, then the maximum likely within that channel would be in the 1380-5 area, with the upper bollinger band in the 1482 area today. Equally if that channel is going to hold then the main retracement has not yet got going, and I have a possible target for that at the intersection of rising channel support and the May high in the 1415 area at the start of October:

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