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.

Lucy in the Sky with Dimon

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I guess all the chatter and excitement (and e-mini weakness) tonight is based on JP Morgan (JPM – duh) announcing a potentially gigantic loss in one of their funds (or some such; I couldn't really care less about the particulars; what counts is that it's nuking equity futures right now). 

I'd say firm support is at about $33. It won't get there tomorrow, but it's well on its way.

0510-jpm

Do I need to remind anyone here that the first serious tremors of the (marvelous, delicious, awesome) financial crisis of 2008 was when some big funds started blowing up late in 2006 and early in 2007? Those were the canary in the coal mine.

Of course, Jamie (who the hell names a boy JAMIE? The only "Jamie" I've known in my life was a transvestite, and yes, I'm serious) is probably waiting for Bernanke to bail him out with a check from you and me. What are friends for?

UPDATE: Home page of ZH, baby!

0510-zero

 

Mixed Signals Overnight (by Springheel Jack)

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The immediate picture was looking distinctly bullish at the open of the overnight session, with a sloping IHS breaking up on ES, bonds looking bearish and EURUSD seemingly poised to break up. Some of that bullish picture is intact, but ES retraced to trash the IHS and break initial rising support, so the overall picture is in doubt. ES has established a rising channel from last Thursday's low at the overnight low so far and as long as that channel holds I'm leaning bullish, with a break over declining resistance at 1408.75 needed to confirm that the short term trend is still up. On a move below channel support at 1401.5 I would lean bearish and see where that goes today, with a break below Friday's low at 1395.75 opening up a test of Thursday's low in the 1386 area:

On the SPX 15min chart I have a provisional rising channel established from the March 7 low at Thursday's low, and a break below that would look bearish. I have that support in the 1397 SPX area. One interesting thing to note on this chart is how Thursday's low was a perfect retest of the declining channel / bear flag that broke up on Monday morning. If we do see a break downwards today I would be looking for the next low to be signaled by positive divergence on the 15min RSI, as that has been working very well over the sideways action over the last few days:

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Strength in Financials ETF vs SPX & U.S. $

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Further to my post of March 9th, and as can be seen on the two Daily charts below, the Financials ETF (XLF) outperformed the SPX and the U.S. $ on Tuesday. With Tuesday's volume spike, the recent bullish Golden Cross of the 50 sma above the 200 sma, and a potential reversal of negative divergences on the RSI, MACD, and Stochastics indicators, these two charts are worth watching over the next days/weeks to come to see whether the Financials sector maintains its leadership over these two instruments.


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