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.

Thanksgiving Thoughts – Longer Term

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I was going to do a longer post today but I’ve decided to split the post in two, covering the longer term in this post and looking shorter term in a follow up post to be published tomorrow.

In my last post I was looking, among other things, at the SPX monthly chart and noting that if there was a monthly close significantly above the monthly upper band (currently 3570 area) at the end of November, then that would be the first time in the last twenty five years that had happened less than six months after a recent strong punch close above the monthly upper band (in August). The monthly close for November is at the close on Monday, so that is now only just over a trading day away in regular trading hours. Could it happen? Yes, and this has certainly been a very strange year both in the world and on the markets so we’ll see.

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So Here We Are

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Firstly my apologies for the wait since my last post. I’m currently getting divorced, which isn’t much fun, and the presidential election was so polarising in the US that I was getting the impression that if I mentioned that the weather was getting chillier as the season changed, then some would feel that was a comment on the election and get offended. The election is finally over….ish, and I think it’s safe to start writing again about markets.

So in my last post I was writing about the bull flags that would likely deliver retests of the all time high as and when they broke up. Those evolved into larger bullish patterns, a bull pennant on SPX, a bull flag on INDU, a possibly still forming bullish pattern on NDX, and on Monday those broke up into new all time highs on SPX, Dow 30 and RUT, but not so far on NDX. Equity indices are still retracing from those Monday highs, so what should we expect next?

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Flatten the Funhouse Mirrors

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Let’s suppose you were about to head outdoors, and you asked me the temperature so you could dress appropriately. “It’s thirty-two”, I tell you. So you slip on a thick coat, a scarf, and a hat, then you head outside.

After you shut the door behind you, the hot air hits you, and you immediately come back inside, furious with me, and change into something more comfortable. I was telling you the truth – – the temperature was, in fact, 32. Celsius. In other words, you should be wearing a short-sleeved Tommy Bahama top and not a thick coat.

Similarly, you might ask me what my father’s salary was when I was a kid. “Thirty-five thousand dollars.” Wow, pathetic, right? How did he support a family of six, and we lived in a nice house? Well, the salary I am telling you about was from decades ago, and it was pretty good money back then.

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