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.

Precious Metals (by Springheel Jack)

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I've been dusting off some longer term charts over the last few days, and while we wait see see whether silver can break above the upper trendline of the two year rising channel, I've been considering the next upside target if it does. I posted a possible continuation IHS on silver when it broke 20 and suggested 30 as a possible target. In addition to the IHS there is also the longer term resistance trendline on silver indicating to the same area. If we do see a break up I think we could see a fairly fast move to 30 but if so, it should find some formidable resistance there:

101008_Silver_Daily_Rising_Channel

A lot of people don't like IHSs as continuation patterns but they do appear and play out every so often. My favorite example is the big IHS on gold that recently made target. If silver breaks up I would expect to see gold make my next upside target in the 1450 area:

101011_Gold_Daily_Patterns

Another long term chart that sprang to the eye was USDJPY where the all time low in 1995 at 79.7 is now within striking distance. A test looks more than likely from here now and would seem likely to coincide with USD hitting the multi-year support trendline at 75.75:

101011_USDJPY_Weekly_Long_Term_View

Short term I'm still looking for a swing high in this area, though I'm not seeing much to suggest that the pullback will be deep. My bullish EW chum Pug, who has been bearing up well under the burden of being constantly right about market direction for quite a while now, is also looking for a high here. He's looking for that in the current area or slightly higher at 1175. I'm looking at the post flash-crash high at 1173.57 SPX to provide some resistance and I'm seeing a very possible broadening top on ES where I'm thinking we may well see an upper trendline hit in the 1169 ES area today:

101011_ES_60min_Broadening_Top

That broadening top on ES might also give us the next swing low on the lower trendline of course and I'll be looking for it there. Despite the name, broadening tops are not a bearish pattern as they break up as often as they break down, and I'm thinking that this one may well break upwards after the next retracement. Pug's looking at 1137 SPX and 1120 SPX as the most likely retracement targets and I'd add 1130 SPX to that for the retest of the IHS neckline. Anything lower than 1120 SPX and we might be seeing a much deeper break down, but I'm not expecting to see that happen.

Pug's wrapup post from last Friday is available for anyone to view here, and I would suggest that it is well worth a read.

As an aside some of you will have noticed that Alphahorn has closed his blog after getting some very snarky comments last week. Snark is always a problem on the blogs but I was particularly sorry to see this as Alphahorn is a superb analyst and has been eerily accurate on market direction in recent months. He was writing about a return to the 1170 SPX area in August as I recall, and that makes him one of very few who were. A serious loss to the blogosphere and yet another example of some bloggers making a virtue of bluntness at the expense of good manners. Sad.

The Looming Something

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I read a lot of market and economic commentary from various sites, and the smart ones all seem to agree on a few general things:

(1) All the trillions being dumped into the system will probably eventually result in Something bad happening; what that "something" is remains unknown, although a worldwide currency crisis seems to be a favored choice;

(2) The jobs market remains dead, except for lame-o service jobs, and without the artificial manipulations of the Fed, we'd be looking at a 12% unemployment rate right now;

(3) The stock "market" is a stock market in name only; at this point, it's a bizarre confabulation of the Fed, the big banks, POMO, and HFT computers.

(4) There will come an event that will – probably very quickly – bring forth the unintended consequences of all this unprecedented action, and the Something will be reviled instead of embraced.

But all the important stuff – like when the crisis will happen and what form it will take – is utterly unknown. This makes trying to make money in a market like this both confounding and difficult.

What I've noticed, as a technical analyst, is that the only time this year the market behaved in a sensible fashion is during the few months that Goldman Sachs was under the gun of the government. The moment GS bought themselves out of their troubles, things got weird again, and they've stayed weird ever since.

What scares me is that things were likewise weird in 1999, and they just kept getting weirder. The "shock event" that finally woke people up was Microsoft's earnings warning early in April 2000.

What brought all this to mind for me was my examination of charts last night. There are many, many charts that are simply acting in ways that seem abnormal. It's as if you have spend the past twenty years watching people run headlong into a brick wall. Every time they reach the wall, they smack against it and fall to the ground. And this time, as you're watching people rush toward that wall…..they pass through it and emerge on the other side.

That isn't what you are accustomed to seeing; it doesn't make sense; and yet, those are the facts before your very eyes.

I still am basing my own trading on individual stock charts. I thank my lucky stars that I stopped trading /ES, Forex, and – with only a single exception this entire year – options. That kind of leverage and volatility, particularly with a plunging VIX in the background, smells of disaster.

I again took a close look at my 1937-1942 analog this morning, and I remain convinced it is firmly intact. If there's going to be a drop this month – – and I think there is – – it isn't going to be anything dramatic, if the analog holds. I don't think we'll get anywhere close to the lows of even August, and I certainly don't think we're going to have a hard fall, unless some leading companies start announcing some surprising earnings.

I think a dip this month would line up nicely with:

+ A (very temporary) strengthening of the US dollar

+ A (again, temporary) diminishment in precious metals prices

Were we to get such a move, I would be strongly inclined to exit most of my short positions and, at the right price, get heavily long in the area of precious metals and specific equities (I am presently long 10 positions). Bernanke seems hell-bent on wrecking the dollar, and I would like to align myself with the Fed's insanity.

Here's what concerns me even more (I never said this essay would be heartening): if we do get a dip, and then a subsequent surge in equities, metals, and the Euro – – the analog predicts that the markets would go into an Ungodly Boring state for months until the Shock Event takes place. The shock event in 1940 was Germany's aggression; the shock event in 2011 would be……Something. Again, nobody knows what it is and nobody knows when it will happen.

But it seems that the Something is out there, and until then, the market is going to remain a pretty big pain in the rear.

One final thought – – one of the many Something Doesn't Look Right Here data points before me is all the hoo-haw about suspending foreclosures. I don't have a sympathetic bone in my body for banks, but this nationwide suspension of foreclosures – – based on technical errors in execution by the banks – – seems ridiculous to me. My heart doesn't bleed for people who:

(a) bought a house way beyond their means;

(b) signed a document promising to pay a certain amount of money each month;

(c) blew off their obligations to pay;

(d) are hanging out in the aforementioned house, rent-free, payment-free, and scruples-free

I've said it before, and I'll say it again – – the biggest suckers in the entire country are hard-working people who pay all their bills on time, keep their commitments, and wouldn't dream of not making payments simply because they could get away with it.

People like – say – me.

Because I really do wonder how stupid I can possibly be to be sending in my payment every month when millions have apparently been given free license to steal houses – – or at least live in them for free for God knows how long. People who are honest and do as they pledge appear to be the Fools of the Nation.

Hi. My name is Tim Knight.

So there we have it. Things are really wrong right now, and they'll continue to be wrong for the foreseeable future. I don't like it, and I hope it ends sooner than I fear.

The Big Picture on USD (by Springheel Jack)

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SPX is testing an important declining trendline from the 2007 highs and looking at many other instruments on forex and commodities particularly, I'm doubtful about that resistance trendline holding. Here's the SPX daily chart showing that declining resistance trendline as well as the main rising channel from March 2009. Shorter term my 60min chart from yesterday morning still covers the short term rising channel situation:

101007 SPX Daily Declining Trendline

Longer term the big picture here in my view is mainly about USD. If USD crashes to a new low below the 2008 low then the picture for equities looks very bullish, particularly in the emerging and commodities markets where major bull markets are in full swing. The technical picture on USD is looking increasingly grim, but it isn't yet looking desperate. Looking at the ten year USD chart I'm seeing two major trendlines that are the most important for USD at the moment.

The first trendline is the declining resistance trendline from the 2006 high, and the USD rally reversed there. If USD were to bounce back, that would be key overhead resistance. The second trendline is the one that mainly interests us here though, and that is the rising support trendline from the 2008 low. The next test of that support trendline will be in the 75.8 area, and with USD at 77.64 as I write this, we may not be waiting long to see it. Here it is on the USD weekly chart:

101007_USD_Weekly_Trendlines

Of the three rising resistance trendlines that I posted for EURUSD yesterday morning, the first broke up yesterday, the second broke overnight and on a break of 1.40 my next target is in the 1.42 area. I read yesterday that Goldman Sachs have raised their forecast for EURUSD to 1.70 now, and while their record for these forecasts is spotty at best, I can see where they're coming from on the long term weekly chart. You can see on this that we have a twelve year rising channel on EURUSD, and the upper trendline is in the 1.70 area.

Shorter term though there is significant declining resistance in the 1.455 area, and that area is also the target for the broadening descending wedge formed between November last year and June this year. I think we'll see EURUSD test that declining resistance trendline, and that should be at about the same time USD tests key rising support. On a break up through that on EURUSD, I think the Goldman Sachs target would look doable:

101007_EURUSD_Weekly_Rising_Channel

On the shorter term charts I've been watching the Yen break up yesterday, and another USD currency pair that has made a decisive break up is CADUSD, where a four month rectangle with a target at 103.5 has now broken up. There is also a two year channel on CADUSD with a target that would take it over the 2008 high at 1.10:

101007_CADUSD_Daily_Rising_Channel_and_Rectangle

AUDUSD took out the 2008 high yesterday and my next target is a significant rising trendline in the 101 area. The target for the broken broadening formation is at 107 of course:

101007_AUDUSD_Weekly_Rising_Wedge_and_RAABF

The main thing I'm waiting for now though is that USD support test. If USD bounces hard there then the overall technical picture would change a lot, and we're close enough to it now that it is the obvious target for the current wave down. Short term that suggests that we're now unlikely to see a significant reversal until we reach it and that puts my key EURUSD target over the next few weeks at 1.455.

Who Killed the US Dollar? (by Springheel Jack)

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It was Ben Bernanke, from a helicopter, with a printing press!

Cluedo jokes aside though. I've been looking at the technical picture on USD and it really is starting to look very grim. The Fed is inflicting damage to USD, and IMO at least to the long term health of the US economy, on a scale that Osama Bin Laden could only dream of managing. Ben Bernanke could well succeed in doing to USD what the PIIGs have failed to do so far to the Euro.

After breaking support at the 61.8% fib retracement of the USD rally, a new low is looking very possible. If we take three or four months to reach it, then the wedge target would be at the same level as the H&S target:

A similarly bleak picture in the inverse can be seen on EURUSD:

The picture looks marginally less optimistic on GBPUSD, where the big rising wedge that is forming looks potentially longer term bearish for cable at least. It is a monster pattern though, and GBPUSD could run up a lot further within it. I would point out though that rising wedges break up 31% of the time and that this rising wedge could also be an IHS with an upsloping neckline:

One thing I've been watching as the markets in the developed world have stalled in the last two weeks is how emerging markets and commodities have continued to run up. I've posted the rising wedges on GYX and EEM in recent days to show the big rising wedges on both. GYX continued up to hit the upper wedge trendline on Friday:

That looked encouraging for the bear side until I looked at the updated EEM chart, where the upper trendline has been hit and then gapped through. That could still be a wedge overthrow but this is not at all encouraging for seeing an interim top in the near future:

One of the few bright spots for bears at the moment has been the lagging financial sector, where XLF has been strongly underperforming SPX. I'm wondering though whether that is going to help the bears during what is beginning to look like a run on USD. That run on USD might help the bears only if the run triggers a general flight from all US denominated assets over the next few months, and it is possible that we are seeing the start of that at the moment:

I was reading earlier this week that on current trends the Fed is likely to overtake both Japan and China within two months to become the largest holder of US treasuries in the world. Every dollar of that holding has been purchased with a freshly printed dollar, so in effect the US has just been printing money to finance the ever increasing fiscal deficits. That is a policy that, when sustained, has only ever ended one way historically. Ben Bernanke is determined to avoid deflation, and he has the tools to avoid it for certain. You should always be careful what you wish for however, you might just get it. 🙂

Anyway, just some weekend thoughts. It's my birthday today and I'll be going to a wonderful restaurant / pub with the family for a great lazy afternoon. This being the UK, the weather stinks of course, but we'll be staying inside. Everyone have a great rest of the weekend. (Note from Tim: Happy Birthday, SHJ! We love ya!)

Time for the Harvest (by Fujisan)

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My apologies for being silent for a while.  I decided to stay away from the blogsphere as it's sometimes hard to focus on my own perspectives when I hear too many noises.

(BTW, what happened to that "Hindenburg Omen" that everybody was talking about not so long ago??)

Now that I see the big bear (i.e., TK) posting the bullish breakouts, I decided to share some of my thoughts today.

As the US indices have been pretty flat for the past many months, I have been trading other financial vehicles which have more clear paths and the trendlines, and I have been using them as my leading indicators to pick the directions on the general markets.

Here are some charts that I have been trading lately.  EEM, AUD, and EUR are all in the beautiful 5 waves upside structures ready to complete this leg up pretty soon.

EEM Daily

EEM 
EWH Daily

Ewh 
EUR Daily

EUR 
AUD Daily

AUD 
SPY has been pretty flat compared with the other international markets.  In fact, it's one of the most bearish looking charts of them all.  By all means, it's almost completing ab=cd pattern at 116.36.

Spy 
Here is another look of SPY charts with my favorite Person's pivots.  As you can see, ab=cd upside target of 116.36 incidentally clusters with both monthly and weekly R1 pivots so I'm expecting a strong resistance at this level and a possible pullback.  This goes well with EEM, EUR, AUD almost completing the upside targets.

SPY_Pivots

QQQQ Daily

Qs just hit the upper side of the channel on Friday.  

QQQQ

INTERMEDIATE MARKET VIEWS

I have posted some intermediate to long term charts previously and I'm delighted to say that they are all right on the track.  For those who are interested, here is the link to my original post on May 29.

NDX Weekly

NDX 
RUT Weekly

RUT 
INDU Monthly

Here is the upate of my INDU monthly.  Here is the link to my original post on March 6th.  I had a discussion about three peaks and the domed house chart pattern and the resolution to this pattern using the daily chart.

INDU_Monthly 
UUP Weekly

Needless to say, I have a very bearish outlook on the dolloar.

Uup

HIGH FLIERS

Last but not least, AAPL and AMZN are getting close to my target prices.  Here is the link to my original post on the price projections on AAPL and AMZN on May 2nd.

AAPL Weekly

AAPL 
AAPL Daily

Isn't it amazing that I came up with the same price targets both in the weekly and daily charts??

AAPL_daily 
AMZN Weekly with Original Target as of May 2nd.

AMZN

AMZN Daily 

I have a higher price target for AMZN based on the daily chart. 

AMZN_2 
EWM Daily

No, this is not NFLX, AAPL, or BIDU.  This is one of my favorites, Malaysia ETF, which has just hit my price target last week.

Ewm 
Have a good weekend, everyone!