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.

Support Holding So Far

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I haven’t posted the full set of charts that I do every morning for a while and these are the companion charts that I use in my premarket videos for Daily Video Service subscribers at theartofchart.net. I posted that on twitter before the open today (@shjackcharts), but if you missed that you can see that here.

On ES I was saying that the outlook remains bullish as long as 2146 remains unbroken, and the LOD so far is 2147.75. If that remains the LOD then the outlook still leans bullish. ES Dec 60min chart:

161004AM ES Dec 60min

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De Nada

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The bears didn’t have a good day yesterday, with a larger than expected decline on the indices, and clear breaks at the RTH on SPX close back below the daily middle band, the 50 hour MA and the 5dma, and ES losing the key weekly pivot area at 2152.25 that I highlighted as a key close area on a tweet yesterday afternoon. With the historical stats for the last day of September leaning 75% bearish, and the indices resting on key support levels the odds of the ATH retest on SPX that Stan and I have been looking for definitely looking lower, and you can see that reflected in the tone of my comments last night on the charts below.

Overnight though the picture changed entirely, with marginal new lows and 60min buy signals fixing on ES, NQ and TF, and with a triangle confirmed on NQ and a perfect bull flag channel established on TF. On my premarket video for subscribers to the Daily Video Service at theartofchart.net today I was leaning strongly bullish, and I’ve not seen anything since then to change that view. I’m thinking 50% odds or better that SPX trends up today. The direct link to that video is here. Hopefully some of you saw that when I posted that link on twitter before the open today.

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Symmetry

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SPX made a marginal lower low yesterday as expected and then rallied back into main resistance at the daily middle band, which closed yesterday at 2158/9, with the 5dma and 50 hour MA slightly above in the 2161/2 area. SPX closed a handle above the middle band but in practical terms I count a close less than two handles away from the band as a close on it.

One thing you often see in this kind of situation is a kind of symmetry where unusual setups can repeat several times in a short period and we might have a situation like that here. The last two times that the middle band was tested SPX gapped through it and at the open today SPX has gapped through it again. Both of the last two gaps were breakaway gaps that did not fill that day or the day after. We may see that again today and, if so, that would be a strong start to the ATH retest that we are expecting. SPX daily chart:

160928 SPX Daily

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BoJ, FOMC and Where to Now?

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Below is the opening segment of the September 25 edition of Notes From the Rabbit Hole, NFTRH 414…

The Bank of Japan gave us a glimpse as to just how far down the rabbit hole we may have to follow global policy makers as we try to make sense of ever more complex and shall we say, innovative ‘tools’ being used in the effort to engineer individual economies and asset markets within the global financial system. BoJ announced it would conduct “JGB purchase operations” in order to “prevent the yield curve from deviating substantially from the current levels”.

The market initially interpreted this to mean BoJ stood in support of a rising yield curve, which would for example, help the banks (ref. MTU and SMFG, which exploded higher off of the support levels we had projected), but by the end of the week the Japanese Yield Curve had eased substantially and there seemed to be confusion about what the policy’s intent, or would-be effects, actually were. I wonder if the BoJ even fully knows what it is doing now. Lots of moving parts in a complex system.

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Entering The High Window

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The high window opens on SPX today and runs through to Monday 3rd October. During this period Stan and I are expecting to see a very significant high made that would then be followed by a decline that would be considerably larger than the modest retracement just completed. We are looking for a likely full retest of the all time high, with an eye on higher targets in the 2203, 2206/7 and 2210 areas.

On the daily chart SPX confirmed the break back over the daily middle band with another close above it yesterday. This opens a possible test of the daily upper band, currently at 2202. I’d generally expect to see a retest of the middle band from above today or Monday, and that is currently in the 2161 area. SPX daily chart:

160923 SPX Daily

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