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.
IYR: Looking in the (Bearish) Mirror
Is the Fed's plan to boost real estate values about to go awry…?
(Visit Panzner Insights for more on markets, economics, and geopolitics.)
The End of the Road for Tech Sector Outperformance
(Editor's Note: Many of you are familiar with Michael Panzner and his book, Financial Armageddon; I was delighted to receive an email from him last night asking if he could contribute to Slope from time to time; here is his first entry………Tim)
Instigated by the breakdown in heavily-weighted constituent Apple,
the Nasdaq-100's index-relative trend has broken below a key uptrend
stretching back to the early-2009 lows. This uptrend has been tested
five times before now, underscoring its significance.
With investors waking up to the reality that expectations surrounding
the industry are very high, especially amid a synchronized global
slowdown—not to mention the fact that technology has become a very
crowded trade—the recent breach lends further weight to my bearish views
on the sector (see here and here).
Needless to say, the risk is high that we will see a mad dash for the exits.
(Website: Panzner Insights)
HUI-SPX Ratio Aims For Higher Levels
Gold bugs were sent to the woodshed for much of the last year while
the regular stock market spent much of its time bulling. This has
served two purposes. First the over bullish (gold fever) sentiment
profile was cleared out in the precious metals and a over bearish
profile was at least partially addressed in broad stocks.
This is a potentially excellent setup for people who made the
necessary adjustments last year and now await a continuation of a trend
that appears to be in its infancy. Let’s look at the big picture view
of the HUI-SPX ratio, which shows the severity of the gold stock
correction vs. the broad stock market.
Profit-Taking in Tech Leadership
The first two Daily charts below show the profit-taking that is
occurring in the Nasdaq 100 Index. It's currently sitting at the lower end of
its smaller, steeper upward-sloping channel as I write this during intraday
action on Tuesday.
