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.

Suspended Sentence

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Another day of selling yesterday, and SPX has lost over 2% over the first three trading days of 2015. This is fairly rare, having only happened eight times in the last 44 years, and it puts SPX on the clock for a possible rarer setup that would make the prospects for the remainder of the year look bleak.

Of those eight examples, three managed to close January above the close on that third day, which in this case would be 2002.61. Those three examples all put in excellent years, with the lowest rising 14.75% and the other two rising slightly over 26%. That is the SPX ‘get out of jail free card’ option.

Of the five others that closed January below the close on the third day, the best two full year performances were 1% and 3% gains, the next two lost 10% and 11% on the year, and the last lost an impressive 39% on the year (2008). If January closes below 2002.61, the historical stats would therefore suggest that the likely best case scenario would be a flat year. (more…)

Target Trendlines

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As I suggested in my post yesterday, a weak open snowballed into a bigger move down and my target rising wedge support trendline was almost touched at the low yesterday afternoon. That should be hit today or tomorrow though we might see a bounce first to establish a double bottom. I’m expecting wedge support to hold or to be broken only slightly, but if we see a conviction break then it’s well worth noting that there is a double top setup here that would target the 1851 area on a break below December’s low at 1972. SPX 60min chart:

150106 SPX 60min Rising Wedge and Poss Double Top

(more…)

Whiplashed

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It can be difficult to identify the pattern for an advance or decline, though at the least it is usually clear in retrospect. Sometimes, as with the move up from 1820, it can be hard to identify even then. This retrace hasn’t been as hard as that, but has been a tough road to identify with these fast whiplash moves and a total of three decent falling channel candidates having established so far. The first that I posted yesterday broke up in the morning, the second had me looking for another two handle move up from the intraday high that never came. The third one however was clear by the end of the day, and with the quality of the trendline anchors and fit so far I’m very confident this is the correct one.

I have channel support in the 2013 area at the moment, declining obviously, and we have see channel support hit this morning. if we see a break below then I’ll be treating that as this channel breaking down, possibly evolving into a falling megaphone, and I’m not sure where the next support above 1998 (50 DMA) might be. Unless we see that break I’m a buyer at channel support, though we may well see a bounce before a hit there. SPX 60min chart: (more…)

Bears Can Occasionally Deliver

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It was refreshing to see the bears deliver a decent decline yesterday, with a clear fail at the retest of the daily middle band. SPX is now into the higher part of my target zone and there is now a very nice falling channel from the highs that should define the retracement. as and when this channel breaks up, this retracement should be over or ending. SPX 60min chart:

141211 SPX 60min Falling Channel

Now that the downtrend is more than just the bare minimum I would like to talk about the two main target zones here. I have two target areas within my target range, though I’ll expand that range slightly from 1995-2033 to 1990-2033. (more…)