The scale of the Republican capitulation yesterday was impressive and the Democrats got their ninety day extension without any real concessions. Frankly I was surprised and clearly the Democrat strategy of hanging tough on the negotiations was realistic after all. There wasn’t much reaction on the equity futures market and ES is down four points or so at the time of writing since the bill passed. (more…)
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.
Too Much News
It seems that a deal on the budget and the debt ceiling that will cover the next few months is likely to be done this week. That will be a relief as this news-heavy environment hasn’t been making calling direction easy. After a deal is done hopefully we’ll see a return to just the usual fedwatching and earnings. (more…)
Mind the Gap
There was a six point gap between my support trendlines on SPX and ES yesterday morning and it was the ES falling channel trendline that held the low. Since then ES has bounced as high as 1666.25 overnight, and I have main resistance this morning at falling channel resistance and the 200 hour MA in the 1670-2 area. Obvious support this morning is in the 1655-7 area. ES 60min chart: (more…)
The Budget Deadlock Pattern
I don’t know if it will continue today but the last two days have seen declines initially, followed by a dribble upwards all day on press conferences and vaguely optimistic statements that a budget deal might be close, then a decline overnight as it becomes clear than any agreement has been knocked back another day. This pattern may repeat again today of course. (more…)
Cats and Dogs
Well there was no budget agreement yesterday, which wasn’t much of a surprise really, as no-one seemed particularly interested in talking …. to each other, or compromising. The Republicans seem more likely to be more damaged by this shutdown and may well blink first and soon to avoid serious electoral damage, but I would expect at least a couple more days of posturing and empty rhetoric before a face-saving formula is found. (more…)
