Just came across something fascinating about historical market cycles that might actually explain some patterns we're seeing right now.

There's this old theory from Samuel Benner, an Ohio farmer back in the 1800s, who basically mapped out economic cycles by studying historical data. In 1875, he published his findings on periods when to make money, and honestly, the framework is wild. He identified three distinct phases that keep repeating: panic years, prosperity years, and buying opportunity years.

So here's the structure. You've got what he called panic years - these are the crash periods when everything gets shaky. The historical ones he noted: 1927, 1945, 1965, 1981, 1999, 2019, and then projected forward to 2035 and 2053. The interval between these tends to be 16-18 years. During these periods, you don't want to be holding bags.

Then there are the prosperity cycles - the years of good times and high prices. These are your selling windows: 1926, 1935, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1972, 1980, 1989, 1998, 2007, 2016, 2026... and that's interesting because we're literally in one of these right now. The theory says these are peak times to unload your positions and lock in profits. The projected years continue through 2035, 2043, 2052.

What's really intriguing is the third layer - the buying opportunity years. These are the low-price periods when smart money accumulates: 1924, 1931, 1942, 1951, 1958, 1969, 1978, 1985, 1995, 2006, 2011, 2023, 2030, 2041, 2050, 2059. Notice 2023 just passed? That was supposed to be a major buying window. The cycle roughly repeats every 7-10 years for these dips.

The practical playbook Benner outlined was simple but elegant: buy during the low-price years (C), hold through the prosperity phase (B), then sell before or during the panic years (A). It's basically a macro timing framework that keeps repeating.

What caught my attention is the convergence point. Look at 2035 - it shows up in both the panic column AND the prosperity column. That's a potential inflection point. Could signal a peak followed by a sharp correction.

Obviously, this is historical theory, not a guarantee. But the fact that these cycles have held up reasonably well across centuries makes you think about the bigger picture. We're currently in what the model would call a prosperity window (2026), which historically has been when you want to be thinking about taking profits or at least protecting positions.

If the pattern holds, the next major buying periods would be around 2030, and then you'd want to be cautious heading into the 2035 window. The whole point of tracking these periods when to make money is understanding where we are in the macro cycle, not trying to time every little move.

Worth keeping this framework in mind when you're thinking about your longer-term strategy.