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.

Cats and Dogs

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Well there was no budget agreement yesterday, which wasn’t much of a surprise really, as no-one seemed particularly interested in talking …. to each other, or compromising. The Republicans seem more likely to be more damaged by this shutdown and may well blink first and soon to avoid serious electoral damage, but I would expect at least a couple more days of posturing and empty rhetoric before a face-saving formula is found. (more…)

Government Shutdown Gap

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It seems likely that deadlock over the budget negotiations will trigger a partial shutdown of the US government tonight for the first time in 17 years. Equities have responded with a big gap down overnight and ES is trading at 1671 as I write. Looking at the ES 60min chart this looks like a breakaway gap under the support trendline of a pattern that could be read either as a falling wedge or a sloping H&S. The target for either would be in the 1640-5 area. There is some positive RSI divergence here and we may see a retest of broken support in the 1681-3 area. That would look very shortable. If this is a breakaway gap it shouldn’t be filled until the downside move has finished. ES 60min chart: (more…)

Knife Fight at Support – Day 3

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First let me express some sympathy for those who bought the close yesterday in the expectation that the falling wedge on SPX had broken up and retested and that yesterday’s strong close was a break up. I did say yesterday morning that the falling wedge on SPX wasn’t of high quality. However the falling wedge on ES is a decent quality pattern and that broke up at the close yesterday. As long as support holds this morning, with ES having currently made marginal new lows for the week, there is a strongly bullish setup here with the broken falling wedge and possible double-bottom targeting the 1710.5 area on a break over 1696.5. (more…)