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.

Risk ‘ON’

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I have a short position against the S&P 500 and despite Friday’s EoD reversal and yesterday’s down day, as noted to subscribers in an update, I don’t feel very good about its prospects. I am net long the market, and that is for a reason; recent signals have been more bullish than bearish.

Greece? Ha ha ha… was Greece 1 bearish? How about Cyprus? How about the litany of other meltdowns around the world since? In the price obsessed casino (where patrons checked any concept of value at the door), it seems to be all bullish because even when backing out the 24/7, 365 inflationary global policy hoses we realize that over bullish sentiment keeps getting reset by these anxious events and the bull eats that for breakfast.

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The Financialized Economy

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This segment is excerpted from this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 329, and was originally titled…

Does the US Economy and Stock Market Need Manufacturing?

The ISM PMI reports for December and January showed deceleration in line with our view that a persistently strong US dollar would begin to eat away at US manufacturing, exporters and other companies that depend on significant foreign business. But in an age where investors will bid up Twitter* (with its forward P/E of 141 and 30B market cap to 1.2B revenue) by 16% in a day, are we returning to the old days of ‘PE’s don’t matter’ with the hook or tout being ‘it’s all about ad revenue’?

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Gold & US Banks; a Critical Juncture

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piggybankIt’s all about confidence, right? Right.

In 2011, when the commodity and ‘inflation’ trades blew out, the Federal Reserve was completely discredited, with gold bugs out front poking them in the eye with taunts of “Helicopter Ben”. Markets rebelled against the Fed by sending silver to $50 and commodities in general to an all-time high.

Today, we have come 180° as market participants the world over have been conditioned to revere policy made from on high. Herds being what they are, every utterance from the jawbones of these former buffoons is respected in the form of instantaneous market movement. It’s as if everyone believes the Fed is in total control.

One indicator that this confidence is coming unwound would be a breakdown in the banks. They are right at key… as in critical… as in bull market… support. Not surprisingly, gold has taken on an inverse stance to the Pigs. This should be interesting.

bkx.gold

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Hulbert on Fed Rate Hikes and the Stock Market

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Mark Hulbert has a piece this morning at MarketWatch in which he de-correlates the first Fed interest rate hike from any supposedly corresponding stock market movements. I agree with some but not all of what he writes. Let’s take it a chunk at a time.

Investors, it doesn’t matter when the Fed raises rates

Are you obsessed with whether the Federal Reserve will begin to raise official interest rates in July, September or sometime next year?

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Canary’s Alive & Well

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Excerpted from this week’s Notes From the Rabbit Hole (NFTRH 327), a 35 page report covering economic data and indicators, US and global stock markets, commodities and clear technical and macro fundamental parameters on gold, silver and the miners…

Canary’s Alive & Well

This week we will cover the ECB QE action, Euro, USD and their implications for global trade. We’ll also update a still-intact rally in gold, silver and the miners along with some (NFTRH+) trade opportunities. But first let’s review December’s Semiconductor Equipment sector Book-to-Bill ratio, just out on Friday evening and discuss some of the dynamics in play with respect to the ‘b2b’ and the US economy.

b2b

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