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.

Trading Through the Volatility Drought

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(and Why It May Finally Be Ending)

For what feels like an eternity, options traders have been staring at one of the tightest volatility clusters we’ve seen in years. Premiums have been lean. The usual fat opportunities to sell risk have been slim. It’s been like sitting in the calm before a storm, waiting for movement that just won’t come.

But here’s the interesting part: that cluster is starting to spread out. If you pull up a volatility chart, you’ll notice the compression loosening. The market may not have broken out yet, but the early signs are there, and those signals matter for traders who’ve felt handcuffed by months of low implied volatility.

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Decision Time on the US Dollar

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In my last post on the US Dollar on 26th June I was looking at the very big inflection point forming here on USD that will likely ultimately resolve into a rally back into a retest of the 2022 high at 114.78, or a break down towards the 78-9 area.

Since my last post, on the monthly chart below, USD delivered a small move down to test the rising megaphone support from the 2011 low, rallied and then retested the low, slightly breaking that rising megaphone support.

What would that generally mean? Well the slight break of the rising megaphone support means that my working assumption is now that USD is in an topping process for the move up from the 2011 low, so I am looking for a topping pattern to form, and the retested low has set up a shorter term double bottom that may now deliver a strong rally.

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Possible Crypto Retracement Low

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In my post on Tuesday last week I was looking at the possibility that we might see a modest retracement (by Crypto standards) on Crypto over this week and into the end of September, during the last significantly bearish leaning period (on equities) this year.

In my premarket videos over the rest of last week I was looking at the possibility that daily RSI 5 sell signals might form on Bitcoin (BTCUSD) and Solana (SOLUSD), and that Bitcoin and Ethereum (ETHUSD) might get another leg down within larger bull flags that might be forming from their last all time highs.

We haven’t actually been seeing much bearish action on equities during this historically weak bearish window on equities, at least until the Fed comments yesterday casting doubt on further rate cuts this year, but the pullback on Crypto has been proceeding as expected.

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