Happy Winter, everyone! Yes, it’s the winter solstice. As we wind down the last few trading days of the year, volatility is collapsing to levels hardly ever seen before in financial history. It actually reached a 10-handle this morning. Incredible.
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.
2016: The Year that Fundamentals Forgot
Sentiment Extremes Warn of Likely Correction In US Equities
One of my favorite indicators for identifying potential corrections in the stock market has just triggered the 4th extreme reading of below 0.60 on the Put-to-Call Ratio in what I refer to as a cluster of readings (a series of sub 0.60 readings that occur in relative close proximity without a substantial correction while the stock market is moving higher with each successive reading).
Bonds: 90% of You Are Herding
90% (my low-balled estimate) of you, the investing public, are herding when it comes to the bond market. You may not know it because the overwhelming psychological atmosphere is to reaffirm, not question peoples’ behavior. That is what herding is; a comforting feeling of going with the flow and being at one with your environment and the greater zeitgeist.
Now, please don’t be offended by the title; you dear reader may well be one of the 10%. But out there in the financial investment realm, they are herding, BIG time, as bond yields are expected to continue rising, because… media; because… “Great Rotation, part 2” and because… the story of epic secular changes and the chance to be early and clued in to a great new market phase are so alluring.
Connecting the Dots
Over the past six years or so, the VIX has been carving out an enormous saucer-shaped pattern. I’ve been dutifully tinting the price peaks (that is, the mini-panics) all along the way, and it forms a pretty interesting, if highly irregular, pattern.
