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.

Cushioning A Cliff Dive

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Not Reading Slope Can Be Expensive

Back on Tuesday, February 12th, our host Tim noted natural resources stocks were weakening and suggested shorting Cliffs Natural Resources (CLF).

The next day, Cliffs dived 20% after announcing a cut in its dividend after the close on Tuesday.

From A Mess To The Masses

The old Odd Lot Theory was based on a simple premise: the average, small investor (those who couldn't afford round lots of shares) was usually wrong. Guess which stock Fidelity customers were buying with both hands as it dropped 20% on February 13th?

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Oil Salesmen

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Accomplished traders know that the news has little to offer other than occasional context, and mostly entertainment value. This chart is our latest installment in the category of you-just-can't-make-this-stuff-up.

Greasenews

Look at the two articles published by Bloomberg recently. Then, compare the dates the articles were published to a daily chart of WTI futures.  Oil was getting ready to launch for the moon. The orange arrows point out the specific days that Goldman and Barclays issued their bullish reports. Sure, the odds are pretty good that the light, sweet, and sometimes crude stuff will hit $100 this year. But for now, all we have is entertainment value.

For your reading enjoyment, here are links to the full articles:

Brent at Nine-Month High on Chicago; Goldman Sees Tight Supply - Goldman Sachs

Oil May Head to $100 With Two-Year Support - Barclays

Apple's Quarter Was Lousy, But Stock Still Headed To $1,000 – Forbes (sorry,couldn't resist)


Originally published at Trade Flight Plan.

Bounce Options (by Springheel Jack)

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ES went lower after the open yesterday, but the positive divergence on the 60min RSI only increased in force and we are now seeing the bounce from that. It is possible that the retracement low is in, but I don’t think so, I have two main scenarios here and both are assuming that a topping pattern is forming that would target the 1460 ES area, which is a decent fit with the main downside targets that I was giving yesterday. The first option is that an H&S is forming, in which case the ideal right shoulder high would be in the 1511 area. The second is that we have seen the first high of an interim double-top, and if we see a confident break over 1511 today this will be my main scenario. That would obviously assume a test of the current highs. Here’s how that looks on the ES 60min chart:

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Commodities Poised For a Bounce? (by Strawberry Blonde)

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An e-mail from one of my Blog readers this weekend inspired me to write about the following…so, first of all, thank you, kind reader, for writing.

With price sitting just above a major uptrend line from the 2007 lows, as well as horizontal price support, this Weekly ratio chart of DBC:SPX shows that price may be due for a bounce on DBC, theCommodities ETF. If price can rally, break and hold above, firstly 0.02 where there is a convergence of resistance of the 50 sma (blue), 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level, and a short-term downtrend line, it has a chance to reach the 0.022 level, which is currently sitting just above the 200 sma (red), and, potentially, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level just above 0.023, or higher.

If equities weaken, we may see this scenario occur. However, we could also see cash flowing into both equities and commodities. It may be that money is/will be flowing out of Bonds to fund such activity…I last wrote about 30-Year Bonds in my post of January 18th…they are worth tracking over the next week(s)…with the Fed busy buying Bonds, it may be difficult to determine how much private money is flowing out of them…time will tell, as may the charts. One thing that may provide a clue on this is if we see increased buying volumes on equities and commodities and increased selling volumes on Bonds.

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I Have a Theory (by BKudla)

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I am sure it is not unique, but worth sharing nonetheless.  My view is the Federal government is desperate to get the stock market back to being the tax revenue engine it was under Bill Clinton.

Incomes are flat, and national income is not going to be growing anytime soon. They have a problem; how do they goose the stock market and yet control inflation in food and energy.  Their answer has been suppression.

First is was lowering interest rates, then massive selling of interest rate swaps, then massive selling of volatility futures, and massive selling of alternative investments like gold and silver, and probably energy too.

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