The only red on my screen this morning (and it’s down only the tiniest bit) is bonds. This is a market I watch terribly closely, because as I’ve said through most of 2018, the core shift I’m looking for is an increase in interest rates and an accompanying decrease in real estate valuations. Through the course of the year, the now-broken trendline has done an effective job of repelling prices (arrows). At the moment, my fondest hope is that prices don’t either bother getting back to the trendline and instead turn away from that green tinted area.
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.
Bringing Bad Things to Life
General Electric has been falling for two solid years, having lost about two-thirds of its value. Let’s face it, ANY stock which can do that poorly in this completely fake, central-bank-supported, sugar-high of a market has got to have SERIOUS trouble. I thought it might manage to double bottom, but nope – – even with markets near lifetime highs, this piece of crap is breaking down to levels not seen since 2011.
Triple Long View
Good morning, Slopers, and welcome to a new week. The earnings season is finally going to start ramping up, and of course there’s that Putin/Trump meeting happening, so it should be an interesting few days.
There aren’t exactly a lot of fireworks this morning, so let’s take a step back and look at a few basics. First, the bonds below remain completely intact for what I am hoping is a sea-change in the world of bonds and rates. The uptrend, having been broken, was challenging with a multi-week rally, but this mercifully seems to have been repelled where I’ve put the arrow. My only two options positions are substantial stakes in XLU and XLF January 2019 puts, and obviously the XLU is quite dependent on a strengthening interest rate market. My opinion is that we’ll see bond prices tumble away from this resistance point.
Utilitarianism
The Dow Utilities, against which I have January 2019 puts (by way of XLU), has been tearing higher since June 12th. The moving averages are still intact, and we’re coming up upon a wall of resistance that I believe will cease the public’s newfound adoration of utility companies.
