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.

Gold’s Road to Nowhere

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From 'Road to Nowhere' by the Talking Heads:

We're on a road to nowhere
come on inside.
Takin' that ride to nowhere
we'll take that ride.
Maybe you wonder where you are
I don't care.
Here is where time is on our side 
take you there.

From the US Federal Reserve's website and the sub-section The Federal Reserve's Response to the Crisis:


"On September 21, 2011, the FOMC announced that it would extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities–by purchasing $400 billion par of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 6 years to 30 years and selling an equal par amount of Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 3 years or less–by the end of June 2012. The FOMC also announced that it will reinvest principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency MBS in agency MBS. In addition, the FOMC will maintain its existing policy of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction."


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Deflation: As Good As Gold?

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It has been a year since gold began its downward biased consolidation out of the acute phase of the Euro meltdown and resulting hysteria.  In that time, the deflation case was released from the jail that had been a heightened public fear of inflation (the pinnacle of which was in spring of 2011, a time when bond king Bill Gross was very famously short long-term US Treasury bonds).

 

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RUT Roh… Small Caps Could Play Catch Up

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'Rut Roh' would be the utterance of stock market bears if the Russell 2000 small cap index breaks the Bull Flag.  In this summer of discontent the RUT has flagged around a support zone while the S&P 500 has jaggedly sawed its way upward. 

If the markets finally gets over the obsession with Bernanke and Draghi and the QE is that is not directly forthcoming they are expected to shake off the noise and finish up the summer rally as USD continues to take a normal but significant counter trend correction.

As NFTRH has been stating since the beginning, this will be counter-trend stuff only to reset sentiment and get people on the wrong side (bearish is and has been the wrong side since May).  But it is also a good trade, with the best part potentially directly ahead.

Small caps could be a 'catch up' play along with many non US markets.  Here is the chart of the Russell 2k showing momentum non existent and yet MACD zero +, RSI at support and CCI having gone above -100.  If the broad rally is to continue, this index (IWM is the tracking ETF) could really get in gear.

http://www.biiwii.blogspot.com
http://www.biiwii.com/analysis.htm

Just Another Simple Chart of a Monetary Relic…

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I see analysis popping up out there refuting the bearish Descending Triangle view and in my opinion that is with good reason; it looks a lot more like a massive consolidation of previous bullishness than a topping pattern.

However, a common theme seems to be some kind of static about a QE3 'Super Sunday' (don't hold your breath) or some such noise and gold's imminent and preordained blast off, never to return to current levels as the 'banksters' take it higher and higher.  

A theme seems to be that now is the time to be bullish but I have also read within the same theme that we cannot be sure that the 'banksters' will not crash gold through support first, to totally eliminate the little guy before bringing it higher. 

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Is 30.2.Au Flying in Ben’s Face? Not Yet

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More tin foil on a subject I apparently just can't get enough of…

The FOMC announced that Operation Twist would continue through year end.  This is where the Fed tries to re-inflate the housing bubble (and related areas) by buying long term T bonds to artificially hold down long term interest rates while sopping up any inflationary implications to the money supply by selling short term T bonds.  Throw in a side of ZIRP, and you've got a lot of free money flying around out there with very subdued inflation effects.

Gold is in an orderly corrective consolidation.  Silver has been hanging around at support and is sponsored by a bullish CoT structure.  Commodities, even backing out the wildcards in agriculture, are in nice short-term bottoming patterns (copper is rounding upward and crude oil is breaking up from a small Inverted H&S with a target around 98) and just waiting for the Fed to lose control of the nice macro painting it has been working on since Op/Twist #1, back in September of 2011.

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