The FOMC bombshell wasn’t a complete surprise yesterday. I did mention in the morning that the Fed’s capability or courage to tighten policy was mainly theoretical, and it’s still mainly theoretical this morning. Of course the Fed have to walk a fine line between blowing up an asset bubble, and depressing the economy by removing the highly addictive stimulants that may be all that are maintaining the appearance of continuing economic vigor. The US is fortunate to have such a dedicated and highly qualified team operating the printing presses day and night, 365 days per year, and seemingly prepared to do so for the rest of time, or until the value of the US Dollar falls to zero, whichever comes sooner: (more…)
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.
Gold Near Gap
Quite the rally, huh? I just wanted to quickly point out that gold is swiftly approaching a confluence of resistance points. I’ll leave it at that.
FOMC Taper News Day
Today is likely to be dominated by the FOMC Announcement at 2 PM. That announcement seems likely to contain details of when tapering will start, the scale and structure of any taper, and possibly a draft timescale for the tapering to zero of QE3 over the next year or two. This is significant market moving news so many traders will be avoiding carrying any exposure into the announcement. (more…)
There Goes Thirteen Hundred
First of all, thank you to those who vo
ted on what cover of my new book they liked best. When I got the four designs, it took me about half a second to decide on #1 (the guy floating with the balloons). The majority of you folks agreed, as indicated by the pie graph below (green being choice #1). The book comes out early next year, and I’ll be sure to mention it a few dozen times when it does so.
Although I don’t have a position in gold, I have been tracking precious metals with interest, and I noticed that so far this evening, the psychologically-important $1300 level has been breached again. None of us know what the Fed is going to say tomorrow, or what effect their words will have on the market, but my best guess is that gold’s descent is simply going to accelerate. (more…)
Gold: “Taper This”
The media love to get a hold of buzz words and then give them a spin and a life all their own. Recent examples were the mainstream media’s presentation of ‘Operation Twist’ – which was simply an official yield curve manipulation designed to sanitize and dampen inflationary signals – as an inflationary operation, and the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ drama that sent herds of conventional investors to the sidelines* when they should have been contrarian (and bullish) back in Q4, 2012. (more…)
