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.

Complacency to Fear & Back

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From last evening’s post regarding the measurement of complacency or fear in the markets by using the Equity Put/Call Ratio, I stumbled upon a way of timing when those transitions are underway.

It all started as I was comparing the large negative divergence in the SPX:VIX ratio to the large one I recall from 2007. As I began marking it up, a light bulb went off as I realized that ALL of the major Equity Put/Call reversals had a concurrent divergence on the SPX:VIX chart. I will plot them above each other for easier comparison.

Equity Put Call
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Trumper Tantrum

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I think I’ve been doing quite a good job sidestepping politics, as I pledged to do months ago. This post is not a departure from that. Don’t let the title fool you. This is a thought exercise and not an attack on the guy.

There are a gazillion possibilities about what’s going to happen on November 3rd and, far more important, November 4th forward. I’d like us to consider one possibility and what it might mean for the market. And I want to stress again, since I know a few of you are just bonkers about the guy, this isn’t a dig on the current POTUS but is an attempt at an objective mental exercise.

Having laid out sufficient preambles, I’ll offer this possibility: let’s say Trump loses and loses bad enough that he doesn’t really fight it. Let’s just say it’s quite evident that it’s time to hang it up, and he’s a one-termer.

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