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.

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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Setup For a Bull Run on Crypto

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In my last posts on In Monday 12th May and Thursday 22nd May I was looking at the possible setup for a retracement on Crypto that might then set up a substantial bull run on Crypto after that retracement was complete. That retracement is not yet necessarily complete, but I think it may well be, so today I want to look at that retracement, explain why I think that may be ending a bit early, and look at the large bullish IHS patterns forming on Solana (SOLUSD) and Ethereum (ETHUSD) that may deliver major high retests on both while Bitcoin (BTCUSD) makes substantial new all time highs.

Looking at the daily chart Bitcoin broke below the daily middle band into a test of the lower band, the 50dma and the 100k level. They held as support and Bitcoin is trying to break back over the daily middle band. The daily RSI 5 sell signal reached the full target. If the daily middle band is successfully converted back to support then this retracement is likely complete.

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A Modest Proposal

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In my last post on Sunday 1st June I was looking at the bullish leaning stats for yesterday and today and that’s been delivering. I was leaning towards seeing a retest of the May highs on ES and NQ at 6008 and 21858 respectively and we may still see those today but ……. there is another possibility that I’m considering if those highs aren’t retested today.

Of the next six days four of them lean significantly bearish historically and there is a window there for some more consolidation and possible retracement and, while these stats are just a loose guideline, I am wondering if we might see that. We’ll see. I would note though that the window closes after that, with the subsequent three days all leaning bullish.

That’s not what this post is about though. I’ve been talking all year about seeing weakness in the first half of the year and then new all-time highs in the second half of the year, and while the initial weakness was faster and harder than I was expecting, I am still expecting that follow through into new all-time highs, and I want to lay out my preferred as well as my most bullish scenario for seeing that over coming weeks.

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