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.

A New Normal on Trade?

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In my last post on Thursday 24th July I was talking about the inflection point forming here on equities and the two important possible triggers this week. The first of those was the trade deal being negotiated with the EU and that seems to have been agreed over the weekend, at a general level of 15%. This follows a similar agreement with Japan and means that trade deals in that kind of area have been agreed now with most of the largest US trading partners except China, Canada and Mexico, currently at higher levels.

This could be establishing a new normal on trade so I wanted to take a moment to review where this may be leaving us.

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Tariffs and TACOs

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Back on Tuesday 3rd June I laid out a possible bullish scenario in which I was looking for retests of the all time highs on SPX and NDX, with follow-on targets if both ran higher, a retest of the all time high on INDU, and a possible longer shot retest of the all time high on IWM based on a large IHS. Since then we have seen all three of those new all time highs on SPX, NDX and INDU, and the IHS on IWM has broken up hard and made it slightly less than halfway to the target at a retest of that all time high.

What we haven’t seen yet is the further extension to the possible trendline targets that I was looking at on SPX into the 6450-6500 area, or on NDX into the 24000-24500 area, or the new all time high on IWM of course, but I think this rally is likely now very close to at minimum to a steep retracement and may currently be making the highest highs that we will see in 2025.

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The Bigger Picture on the USD

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This is my first public post on the US Dollar possibly since 2012, so it will be lengthier than normal as it will also act as a reference post that I can refer back to every time I do an update on USD here in the future.

I’ve always really enjoyed doing the long term charts on the US Dollar. Longer term patterns can take decades to form, with the falling wedge that broke up in 2014 breaking a wedge resistance trendline coming from a high in 1985.

Even the shorter term patterns within these larger patterns can take many years to form. On the monthly chart below I was noting in April 2012 that the rising megaphone that formed in the 90’s took six years to form, and the current rising megaphone on USD has been forming since the big low in 2008, which was the lowest low going back as far as my data extends to the dying days of the gold standard in 1970.

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State of Confusion

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In my posts on 3rd June and on 11th June I was putting the case for retests of the all time highs on SPX and QQQ, and potentially also on DIA and IWM. In the event that equity indices went higher from there I was also giving targets for that.

In my post on Friday 20th June I laid out a possible short term retracement scenario that I said I didn’t like but was potentially on the cards, and that didn’t happen, despite the US joining the war against Iran over the weekend.

Since the weekend that modest bearish scenario has collapsed, SPX and QQQ have made new highs for June, oil futures fell an amazing $14 from high to low yesterday as fears of an extended conflict in the Middle East receded.

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Nice Smile and Impressive Beard

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In my post on Sunday 1st June I was looking at the historically bearish leaning stats over four of the next six trading days and looking for a modest retracement that we then saw. I also mentioned that the last of those bearish leaning days was today, and that tomorrow through Monday 16th lean strongly bullish. Wednesday and Friday next week are the day before and after the holiday on Thursday 19th June, and lean neutral to slightly bullish historically, and we would often see modest volume and trading ranges, particularly as Friday is also quad witching June opex.

This is the start of a bullish opportunity window that may last for the next month or so particularly as the very important case on the legality of most of Trump’s tariffs being reviewed by the Supreme Court has been delayed until the end of July, and the 90 day window that delayed most of those tariffs in April is currently scheduled to expire on July 9th, with a general 50% tariff on all important from the EU also scheduled to start that day. I am wondering whether we might see a further 30 day delay of that July 9th window into August to land after that key Supreme Court decision.

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