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.

In The Eye Of The Storm

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In my last post on Wednesday last week I was looking at how far the current rally on equities might get, and at the prospects that peace negotiations with Iran might deliver something positive.

I was skeptical about the prospects for a negotiated peace, and the talks in Islamabad on Saturday were abandoned after a day, as there was never really anything to talk about. The ten points that the US had accepted as a basis for negotiation were maximalist demands from Iran that would in effect have been a humiliating surrender by the US, and the alternative proposals from the US team on Saturday were maximalist demands that asked in effect for a humiliating surrender by Iran. The talks never had any realistic chance of success or even progress on this basis.

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Trump’s Tar Baby

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In my last post on Tuesday 24th March I was talking about my hope that the ‘good news’ rally that had started on Monday might last a week or two, ideally through Easter, but noted that the lack of any actual good news might well be a problem. No real good news came through after that and the rally failed into another leg down, led by SPX and QQQ.

At the low on Friday there was strong positive divergence on the 15min charts on SPX, QQQ, DIA and IWM and that played out in a modest rally and low retest yesterday, and what might be a more powerful rally starting this morning.

The main reason that I was hoping for a rally that would last through Easter was that it would allow larger H&S right shoulders to develop on SPX and DIA and that didn’t happen, though I mentioned on DIA that there were two obvious possible H&S necklines and DIA broke the higher neckline but is now testing the lower neckline in the 450 area.

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Four Horsemen – The US Dollar

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There were four big setups, each covering multiple tickers, that I was looking in my bi-weekly The Bigger Picture webinars last year and at the start of this year that looked very strong, but I was struggling to come up with any decent fundamental reasons why they might play out.

That changed when the US attacked Iran on 28th February, and I have since written two posts on the (very bullish) setups on the oil charts first on 3rd March, and after the first phase of those bottoming setups had all made target, with a follow up on 13th March. As these patterns were all at the bottom of decent quality bull flags from the 2022 highs, I am still expecting to see full retests of the 2022 highs on all of $WTIC (Light Crude Oil), $BRENT (Brent Crude Oil) and $GASO (Gasoline), with $HOIL (Heating Oil) having already reached that target.

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