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.

Political Headwinds Await US Markets

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As economic benefits of last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act begin to filter into the US economy, the S&P 500 Index appears to be headed towards a retest of its all-time high of 2872.87 set in January of this year, as shown on the monthly chart below. This record high was accompanied by an all-time momentum (MOM) high, as well…hinting of further strength ahead at some point on this timeframe.

It has broken above what was near-term resistance of 2680 (as I described in my post of May 4).

Watch for a break and hold above its next major resistance level (top of long-term uptrending channel) at 2750. Otherwise, a break and hold below 2680 could see price retest its next support level of 2620, or lower.

(more…)

California Wingnuts

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About a week ago, tens of millions of thick printed election information guides were mailed to every household in California, including mine. I have no idea what it costs the state to create this thing, but I suspect something approaching a hundred million dollars. The purpose of these things is, ostensibly, for people to carefully study the propositions on the June ballot as well as the candidates for the various government posts (Federal Senator, California Governor, Treasurer, and so forth).

California is a famously progressive state, but thumbing through this book, I am always struck by some of the – – shall we say – – more fringe candidate that somehow have made their way into this publicly-funded publication. Here are a few………..

We begin with Jerry Laws, whose entire platform and campaign for the Senate can be expressed in merely a single word: (more…)

Tit for Tat

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During yesterday morning’s pointless run-up in valuations, I remarked how I wasn’t concerned, because the broader trend was with the bears. Likewise, with this morning’s smack-down, I’m not dancing on the table with glee, because it’s just another knee-jerk response to what now seems like a daly tit-for-tat response between China and the U.S. As I keep saying, it’s all about February 9’s lows. We need to break them and close beneath them to get cookin’.

saws (more…)

“Trade War”

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It has in the past been “the financial crisis”, “the Euro crisis”, “Greek debt”, “Italian banks”, “the fiscal cliff”, “Brexit” and so on. Every one of those events an extension of Keynesianism and its debt-leveraged monetary magic tricks. But now the buzz phrase is “trade war”, a different kind of animal.

The brewing trade war with China is different. With every damn one of the events noted above we here in the anti-hype environs of nftrh.com (and before it, biiwii.com) have tried to maintain perspective about why it was occurring (Thing 1, which we had anticipated in essence if not in the exact way it played out) or why they would not prove long-term bearish or bring on the end of the world (Things 2-6).  [Editor’s Note: at first glance, I thought this was a Biblical citation, until I realized there was not a book of Things, at least not in the King James Version to which I am accustomed. – Tim]

Indeed, we often note that inflammatory market events prove most often to be sentiment resets and buying opportunities as the herd pukes up its asset holdings. Keynesianism after all, has an elasticity to it despite its obvious and one day terminal faults. The elastic keeps stretching to this day. (more…)