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.

Trade/Invest Macro Guide

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Below is an excerpt from an NFTRH report (#676, due out on 10.10) that has not even been written yet, outside of this opening segment that clarifies and makes some of the concepts NFTRH deals in more standard and hence, more readily understandable by more people.

Unless you are a pure day trader there should always be a reason for a given investment stance at any given time. That is because the MACRO (top-down global economic/financial backdrop) is the environment within which the micro (trades, investments) exists. At any given macro juncture there are (generally speaking) dos and don’ts with respect to micro trades and investments. From the October 10th edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole…

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US Dollar on Plan

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US dollar (DXY) has activated its Inverted H&S, Gold/Silver maintains its uptrend, watch silver going foward…

I do not make predictions because I do not pretend to be a guru.* But NFTRH has been tracking what has been an uptrend in the US dollar for all of 2021, keeping us well aware of the potentials being realized from late summer into the fall. A higher low was made in May and now a higher high, completing an Inverted Head & Shoulders pattern that we’ve been projecting since USD put in the theoretical right side shoulder last spring.

Until recently it was a projection. Now it is active after testing the (dashed) neckline, holding the (blue) 50 day average and busting to a new high for the cycle. Simple, no predictions but a heck of a lot of attention and respect for the process.

You can see the three targets we’ve had laid out for the world’s reserve currency, which has logically caused market stress of late. It’s as simple as ‘you live (pump markets) by devaluing the currency, you die (markets correct) when it rebels. Now if the rebellion does not become something more than moderate and should end at target #1, we’ll probably go back to our regularly scheduled programming of pervasive inflation problems on the macro.

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When the Rope Slackens

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Upon completing the article I realized that no forward look at the economy and financial markets from an inflationary/deflationary point of view would be complete without consideration of the Yield Curve. Here is its status at the time of writing. It is making a steepening hint this week along with the rise in bond yields. That signaling is inflationary, at least for now. But in 2008 the curve morphed from an inflationary steepener to a deflationary one and that’s an important distinction.

You’ll notice that a blessed Goldilocks economy is mentioned below as a less favored option for 2022. She runs with a flattening curve like the one during the 2013-2019 phase. If it steepens forget about Goldilocks and prepare for either an inflationary or deflationary steepener.

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Gold/Silver Ratio: “Slowly I ‘Toined…”

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The turn upward in the Gold/Silver Ratio has brought a degree of market upset

The question now is whether that is all. Was the GSR simply forecasting Evergrande and associated systemic hype or something worse? And by “worse” I don’t mean the Fed pretending that it really wants to start tapering and go hawkish. As belabored often, the Fed was forced into a hawk suit last spring as the public ate the inflation hysteria.

Since we’re on the Stooges theme, Larry?…

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Gold and Copper

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The Copper/Gold ratio remains at a key decision point

Gold has been clobbered lately but a key metallic macro indicator remains in a long-term congestion zone. If it’s going to be cyclical ‘inflation ON’ we’d expect Cu/Au to break through and do what it has not done since a major inflation trade blew out in 2006-2008, and for the 30yr Treasury yield to eventually catch on and rise at least to the EMA 100 (blue line).

copper/gold ratio & 30 year treasury yield
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