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.

Ben Bernanke: ‘How You Like Me Now, Suckas?’

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A newsletter that was actually pretty workmanlike, charting what it needed to chart and setting its market parameters as usual, ended a little weirdly as the writer had obviously not yet fully processed and resolved his feelings about the Fed Chairman and his brilliantly conceived operation whereby the Fed feeds favored economic areas (hello housing index) through long term bond purchases and sops up the money supply by selling short term bonds.  The result is a painting, a representation of reality as dreamed up by an academic genius.  This was the 'wrap up' segment to NFTRH196:

Bernanke: How You Like Me Now, Suckas?

Gold is twisting around and being restrained by policy. This policy makes it appear that the system is just fine. But this is just a painting, a fraud. A powerful entity is selling non-strategic T bonds to buy up strategic ones. It is painting the macro economic picture in a brilliantly despicable operation to keep previously popped bubbles like housing and current bubbles like government credit alive with no need as yet for outright printing. Markets, including the gold market, seem to buy it.

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Gold Updated – Move Along, Nothing to See Here

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Only when Au breaks above the weekly EMA 35 (and holds it instead of being quickly reversed as it was on the break early in the year), triggers MACD and then confirms with a slower TRIX cross will gold be out of the woods technically.

That is a Descending Triangle and it is running out of room (with the bottom line being the horizontal support zone in the low 1500's.  DescTri's are usually bearish, but they are also usually 'continuation' patterns as opposed to the current would-be 'reversal' [from up to down]. 

But there is an alternate view and that involves a decline to the high 1400's, which if held, would reinforce the pattern as being a bullish Falling Wedge, not a DescTri. 

There is some bearish Descending Triangle hype out there (to go with the opposing 'gold to 3500 cause the system is falling apart!' hype). 

The reality is that the relic is an anchor to honest money and it has been beaten down systematically since the panicked momo's wrecked it last summer.  'WHAT'S WRONG WITH GOLD?!?!?' scream people who do not get the concept of patience.

I happen to believe that gold first blew out from its own unhealthy sponsorship and then for some months now has been held down with the help of the Fed's manipulative policies in Treasury bonds.  That's what I believe; fit me for a tin hat.

But the pattern is tight, has relieved all of the previous unhealthy bull pressure and is in a much more healthy stance.  Again, my guess is that gold will break down through the first support zone and then we watch to see if it finds support at the would be Wedge line in the 1400's (favored) or takes the express elevator to the next projected support in the 1300's.

http://www.biiwii.blogspot.com

Dealers Decline Bernanke Twist Invitation

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Second item down, check it out from Bloomberg.

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

In this week's letter we noted a situation (via Sentimentrader.com) in Treasury bonds where Wall Street strategists were bullish T bonds and bearish the stock market to epic proportions.  Now, here comes a Bloomberg article (the Sentimentrader data was compiled with Bloomberg as the source) showing Wall Street dealers in direct opposition to the Fed and its desire to buy long dated Treasuries.

NFTRH is on a caution stance for the short term and reading things like this makes me all the more firm in that stance.  Not because I want to go against what could be a contrarian setup, but because things are very uncertain at the moment and it says here that we should always manage risk first, speculate second.

http://www.biiwii.blogspot.com

Rise, Platform, Blow Off, Correction: AU is Well

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Many chart geeks – myself included – are managing the 1520 to 1530 area as important support for gold, which it is if the 'price' of gold is what matters.  And with legions of individuals and funds holding GLD or other forms of paper gold, I suppose it is important.  They are hoping for their paper to be marked up after all, with the idea of making 'price' gains in line with the value associated at any given time with the actual monetary metal.

In addition to visual support levels, there are trend lines and moving averages in play as well and this chart has nothing to do with any of these.  In fact, it has not so much to do with technical analysis as it has to do with perspective; a sort of cartoon version of the last several years of agony and ecstasy that has been the gold bug experience.

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