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.
Who Woulda Thunk It?
Hillary Clinton likes pantsuits with a skosh more room.
Abby Cohen is bullish on the market.
And down-days in equities are quickly snuffed out by the next session.
These are truisms in our lives. Still, I can't help but think this sort of thing got old a long time ago.
I have nothing additional to say about the markets right now. I'll do a post this evening. Any guest writers out there, please feel free to contribute.
A Moment of Silence
It's enough to make one want to give up. Nothing – – – not riots, not joblessness, not foreclosures – – – seems able to fight the Treasury's commitment to asset inflation. As we pause here to consider the S&P has doubled in value since twenty-two long months ago and, for the first time since September 2, 2008, has penetrated the 1300 line, we wipe away a tear and think of what might have been.
Schopenhauer’s Retreat
Well, since this was a lousy week for the bears, from end to end, I thought I'd put up a really desolate bar this time. I personally have been throwing in the bear towel, thread by thread, and I am currently positioned 35/65 bullish/bearish. It shouldn't be a surprise that most of my current profits are housed within long positions (like FLR, GPC, GPRO, NOG, PCX, PETM, SOA, TCK, and WYN).
If even a wretched jobs report can't make the market tick down, one really has to wonder.
Blech!
Well, I've had it to just about here (pointing to forehead where tin-foil hat was removed….perhaps prematurely) with this market. Yesterday there was technical damage all over the place – just what we wanted to see – and today the dollar lost all its gains and the market just lurched higher. Not good.
My only bright spot was my short in AMLN, which I covered almost immediately when it was down over 50%. But that one position constitutes a very tiny piece of my overall portfolio, and overall the day stunk. Ironically, a portion of the losses came from attempts to hedge via DIA, but the market absolutely spasmed the last half hour of the day.
We seem to be at "critical junctures" just about every few days now, but – – sincerely – – we are at one now. Here's a look at the NASDAQ Composite:
Incidentally, even though the POMO Market From Hell has only been terrorizing us bears for about seven weeks, it feels like seven years. I've circled the WTF portion of the market action, all of which is POMO driven (I believe Boston said we actually get a one-day reprieve from POMO insanity on Thursday).
The aforementioned DIA is right on the cusp of a potential breakout. I understand that China is going to be putting out some important economic numbers at 10 p.m. EST Wednesday. That's probably going to shake things up in FOREX-land and may well determine what Thursday will be like.
As usual, it's all about the Euro, folks. Below I've drawn a red line marking pretty much the land in the sand for the bulls and bears. If we cross above that red line……well……the bulls can continue partying.
If by some miracle the dollar rallies tomorrow, that would actually make a lot of sense given the UUP chart below. Tuesday it zoomed higher; Wednesday it lost all of its gains, completely filling in the big gap. A true countertrend rally last a couple of weeks would be much more possible in this configuration that with the huge gap up we saw yesterday.
Anyway, today's action really, really took the wind out of my sails. It's a real shame the beleaguered bears can't get more than a single session of a "trend." One day, POMO will lost its effectiveness, but only God knows when that day will come.
