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.

30.2 Yield Curve and Gold

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If the top part of this chart looks bullish to you, then the stock
market and a sense that all is well in the financial system should not
look bullish to you.  The next crisis would be indicated by the long
‘bowl’ shown on the chart turning up hard.  Although right now, it just
continues to gently round upward, above a supportive moving average.

30.2.au

30 yr / 2 yr US Treasury spread w/ gold

Gold, now squarely a ‘risk off’ investment, should follow the curve
ultimately.  Over the last 1.5+ years gold has shaken out the herd and
people who counterfeit official money have drawn that herd right back
into ‘risk on’.

It will errr, not end well.

Biiwii.com

The Great Promotion

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May, 2012:  “Gary = Dumb Investor”, which was a memorable comment
response (among many) to the SeekingAlpha version of this bullish
article:  Dumb Money Sold in May and Went Away

Presently, I am an “idiot” and a “doomer” for being ‘risk vs. reward’ bearish on the US markets.

Excerpted from NFTRH 225:

The Great Rotation Promotion

Promotion (Dictionary.com): something devised to publicize or advertise a product, cause, institution, etc.

The title implies a bear writer about to write bearish things.  I get
it.  I guess I am a bear writer now because I can no longer be a bull
writer.  That is because my b/s detector is calibrated to its most
sensitive setting and usually begins sounding early.  The b/s detector
went off early last May and the bullish analysis had to endure through a
very volatile summer.  Now it is the same, in reverse.

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“Just the Facts”

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The following is excerpted from this week’s edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 224:

“Just the Facts”

To once again quote the man I respected more than any other market
professional I have come in contact with, [a late friend], we will list
“just the facts” in order to define a complicated, yet very interesting
period in time.

  • Stock sentiment was at an extreme over-bearish level by what
    Sentimtrader.com’s data label “dumb money” last summer and as expected, a
    continuation rally of the bull market out of 2009 sprung from that
    sentiment backdrop.
  • The rally’s character is currently of one-way momentum compared to its jagged, up and down nerve-racking beginnings.
  • The sentiment profile is now opposite to its over-bearish state (by dumb money) at the rally’s beginning.
  • The bull remains in full force with a string of 4 sets of major higher highs and higher lows intact out of 2009.
  • Major events over the last year included a resolution by the ECB to
    bailout insolvent union members, the election in the US of a president
    committed to entitlements and credit expansion, the commitment by the US
    Fed to use increasingly inflationary policy to manage an economy it
    deems below capacity, a Kabuki Dance in service to the pretense that the
    Fiscal Cliff ™ debate was anything more than for show, a kicking of the
    US debt ceiling can a bit further down the road, Chinese stimulus
    operations and the election of a leader in Japan who called out the BOJ
    and has committed to stimulating inflation in his country.  Have we
    missed anything?  Yes, there was much more.
  • Signs of economic expansion are cropping up in the economy, from the
    anecdotal evidence of semiconductor equipment orders we noted last week
    to a 53.1 reading on the ISM report to tepid jobs growth.

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Goldilocks Ends and ‘Currency Wars’ Begin

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Below is a copy of this week’s free eLetter that went out this morning.

Goldilocks Ends & ‘Currency Wars’ Begin

Amid continuing inflationary policy, the US Dollar is at a critical
juncture by both daily and weekly charts.  Euro targets 142+ and the Yen
approaches our target.  Currency war kicks off; gold just sits there
biding time.

From last week’s eLetter:

“A Goldilocks atmosphere was expertly created in large part due
to the fact that Operation Twist (yes, we are still dealing with its
effects) by its very definition held long-term interest rates down
(buying long-term T bonds) while sopping up any money supply
implications and inflationary signals by sanitizing the process with the
sales of equal amounts of short-term bonds.”

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