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.

You Buy the Fear in Gold

By -

This article does not speak to gold’s proper fundamentals, which are not yet very healthy (although some positive signs are finally gathering). For the proper counter-cyclical atmosphere to engage gold bulls would need have risk ‘on’ markets and assets crack. Yet, gold’s (and silver’s) price may well bottom before readily obvious fundamental improvement is apparent to a majority (as was the case in Q1 2016). 

Far too much analysis is put out there linking gold with inflation. It is true that gold often acts as an effective inflation hedge, but it all too often fails in that capacity.

Far too much analysis is put out there linking gold with war, terror, pestilence and other conditions of human suffering. The surest way to spot a gold promoter, if he is not pumping inflation, is his pitch for gold as a disaster hedge. Yes okay, and I have a little Unibomber shack in Montana to sell you too. (more…)

Gold/Silver Ratio: Rising for a Month Now

By -

Well, look who is sporting a bullish looking pattern on its daily chart. It’s probably NFTRH‘s most watched indicator outside of the T Bond Continuum.

As you can see, a rising Gold/Silver ratio (GSR) attended the market stock market disturbances in February and March and a declining GSR has attended the relief, i.e. the expected ‘top-test’ by the S&P 500 that has ground on since roughly the same time that GSR topped in late March.

The GSR has spent a lot of the post-financial crisis era in dysfunction mode, but so far in 2018 it is working as we’d normally expect; it rises with market liquidity contraction and declines with risk ‘on’ and an absence of liquidity events.

So, is that indeed a bull pattern? Can we assign such TA to a ratio as opposed to a stock or an index? Valid questions, but all things being equal stock and/or commodity bulls would probably rather not see a pattern like that. What can’t be argued is that gold’s ratio to silver has been increasing for a month now. (more…)

A Macro (Amigos) Update for Mid-Summer

By -

You have better things to do than read droning macro analysis or long, drawn out investment theses. It is a weekend in the dead of summer and for that reason we go easy this week; real easy.

The 3 Amigos are here to simply say that things are as they have been, with Amigo #2 (long-term yields) getting home and pulling back on cue, and the other two (SPX/Gold ratio & Yield Curve) still in process and indicating risk ‘on’ and ‘boom on’, respectively.

(more…)