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 Republic of Itsnosobad

By -

Happy Friday, everyone. And, as is the tradition on Fridays, the press is in a flurry about peace talks, people flying from here to there, and the possibility that such-and-so will meet with this-and-such.

Look, everyone, it took twenty-one MONTHS for the least nuclear deal to be hammered out over a decade ago, and that was with exceptionally talented parties who were eager to meet steadfastly. This situation is – – different.

In spite of this, the VIX has been steady as a rock all week, trading at pretty much 20.75 more or less a few cents.

(more…)

The Four Horsemen

By -

Cotton, Wheat, Corn and Soybeans

There were four big setups, each covering multiple tickers, that I was looking in my bi-weekly The Bigger Picture webinars last year and at the start of this year that looked very strong, but I was struggling to come up with any decent fundamental reasons why they might play out.

That changed when the US attacked Iran on 28th February, and since then I have been looking at these four big setups as follows:

War – I looked at the oil setups in my posts on 3rd and 13th March. Those setups have made the first targets but haven’t yet made the extension targets at retests of the 2022 highs on $BRENT, $WTIC and $GASO.

(more…)

Schrodinger’s Strait

By -

In my post on Tuesday 31st March I was saying that the likely best thing that could happen in the Iran War was that the US declares victory and that the war has ended regardless of any input from Iran. This would avoid further escalation and the major economic shock to the world economy that would likely result from longer term disruption to the Strait of Hormuz and likely also the Bab El-Mandeb Strait.

In my post on Wednesday 8th April after Trump declared a ceasefire and accepted talks on the basis of Iran’s ten point plan I posted charts showing bottoming patterns on SPX, QQQ, DIA and IWM that had broken up and those all made their targets last week, with new all time highs on SPX, QQQ and IWM on the back of a ceasefire in Lebanon and numerous statements last week suggesting that a peace deal was close.

(more…)

Shattered Indexes

By -

Maybe this post should be titled “shattered dreams” instead. Once again, the bears were seduced into a picture-perfect setup and had every bit of evidence to suggest that the market would be grinding its way lower for months, only to have the entire global asset system shocked by a couple of chest paddles. We haven’t had an honest-to-God bear market in almost two decades.

Most index charts look like the S&P 500 below: that is to say, a wedge setup, a rounded top, a failure, and then BLAMMO, the sharpest, most vicious bear-breaking rally in market history. Even at this great distance, the bull run in August looks completely out of place.

(more…)