Life and wealth depend on the Kondratiev wave: Understanding the cycle and destiny

In 2016, Zhou Jintao, the chief economist at Citic Securities Jianbo Investment, popularly known as the “Cycle King,” passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of only 44. Nine months before his death, he left behind in Shanghai what would become his final iconic public lecture—“Life Is a Kondratieff Cycle,” and many seemingly alarming predictions he made at the time were verified one by one in the years that followed over the next decade. This has also allowed people to truly understand the immense power of Kondratieff cycles and the underlying logic of the era’s wealth.

In his speech, Zhou Jintao made a key projection: 2018–2019 would be the most difficult phase of the Kondratieff cycle in nearly sixty years—something close to “never to recover,” while 2019 would become the first critical opportunity for the entire post-1985 generation to achieve a major life reversal. At the time, many people didn’t take it seriously; they thought the remarks were exaggerated and extreme. But reality tracked the cycle’s force step by step. In 2018, the U.S.-China trade friction erupted; China’s A-share market underwent a deep adjustment, and a wave of P2P platform collapses swept across the country. In 2019, global economic growth sharply weakened, and various asset classes generally shrank in value. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck suddenly, nearly bringing the global economy to a standstill. In 2022, the Russia-Ukraine conflict broke out; global inflation surged, and the Federal Reserve carried out aggressive rate hikes. In 2024, China’s domestic real estate market underwent a deep adjustment, with employment pressure becoming increasingly prominent. Those who had mocked Zhou Jintao returned to revisit the lecture, wanting to search for answers about the future from the pattern of the cycle.

Many people mistake Zhou Jintao’s predictions for mystical prophecies; in fact, all his judgments are rooted in objective economic laws validated over more than two hundred years—Kondratieff cycles. This pattern, first organized by Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratieff over decades of effort by analyzing Western Europe and North America’s century-long economic data, centers on the idea that the global economy completes a full closed loop every 50 to 60 years. It sequentially goes through four major stages—recovery, prosperity, recession, and depression—repeating endlessly, endlessly renewing vitality.

Kondratieff’s academic research precisely pierced the core of the cyclical crises inherent in capitalism, infuriating the ideological establishment of the time, and ultimately leading to his wrongful persecution and death. But the theory of Kondratieff cycles was preserved and developed by the academic community. Schumpeter formally named it, and added the key point: the start of each Kondratieff cycle depends on a disruptive underlying technological revolution. The historical five Kondratieff cycles are clear and verifiable. From 1780 to 1840, the steam engine and textile machinery drove the early stages of industrialization; from 1840 to 1890, railways and steel reshaped logistics and the industrial landscape; from 1890 to 1940, electricity and automobiles ushered in modern life; from 1940 to 1990, electronics and aviation technology took off; from 1990 to 2025, the internet and mobile communications have dominated global development, creating the golden age of mobile internet.

Standing at the 2026 time node, the mainstream consensus in cycle research is clear: the end of the depression phase of the fifth Kondratieff cycle—driven by the internet—lies near, while the sixth Kondratieff cycle is building momentum and getting ready to launch. Artificial intelligence, new energy, and biotechnology—three major core sectors—will become the main engines of the next long-cycle.

Zhou Jintao is the macroeconomist in China who has delved most deeply and most thoroughly into Kondratieff cycle research. Over his twenty years in the field, he accurately predicted the 2007 subprime crisis, the turning point of China’s real estate cycle in 2013, and the 2015 rebound in commodities and global asset turbulence. The title “Nicholas Zhou Jintao” is well deserved. His most striking and attention-grabbing core viewpoint overturns people’s ingrained understanding: in the accumulation of wealth across a normal person’s lifetime, 90% is due to the gifts of the Kondratieff era, while personal effort accounts for only 10%. Wealth strata are never defined by individual ability; rather, it is the era’s wave that pushes a person’s wealth position. In the world, there are no people who are “talented in their own time,” only those whom the era’s momentum elevates.

From this comes the classic theory of life’s three “turning points” toward better outcomes. Within a complete Kondratieff cycle, ordinary people—about once every ten years—will face three windows for upward class mobility. Opportunities differ dramatically across generations. For people aged over 40, the first opportunity comes after the 2008 financial crisis to buy assets at bargain prices; the second comes in 2019; and the third is around 2030. For post-1985 (Generation 85) people, the core opportunities are anchored at the early-2019 entry window, a second key node in 2030, and the ultimate chance around 2040. If you seize even one of these, you can move into the middle class; if you seize two times, you can basically achieve financial freedom. Looking back at decades of China’s reform and opening-up era and its wealth surges, the cycle logic is evident at a glance: in 1978, after the reform and opening-up, those who went into business first became wealthy; in 1998, housing commodification reform expanded the asset appreciation of homebuyers by dozens of times; after the global crisis in 2008, with monetary easing at low levels, those who bought at the bottom saw their wealth grow dramatically across the cycle. Those three rounds of era dividends were all gifts from Kondratieff micro-cycles.

Based on cycle projections, 2025–2030 is precisely in the late stage of the fifth Kondratieff depression and the starting point of the sixth Kondratieff recovery—an historic window period when global wealth is redistributed. The price stagnation in housing, a sluggish stock market, weak wage growth, and pressure on prices and debt that we feel firsthand right now, along with alternating deflation and weak reflation, are typical characteristics of the Kondratieff depression stage. The end of the darkness is gradually approaching; the light is just beginning to show. Over the next five to ten years, pioneers who can identify new technologies, new industries, and new business models will be able to replicate past wealth myths—such as those who bought homes and those who bought during crises. If you miss this window, you’ll have to wait dozens of years for the next long-cycle.

Even more worth warning about is that this cycle turning point has unprecedented special characteristics, making 2025–2030 a rare, large-scale wealth jump window for ordinary people. First, technological iteration keeps accelerating, continuously compressing the Kondratieff cycle timeline. The early long-cycle lasted as long as 60 years; the fifth cycle is only 35 years; and the sixth cycle may shorten to within 30 years. That leaves ordinary people with less and less response time for recognition, decision-making, and positioning. Second, the wealth distribution pattern is being fundamentally rebuilt. In the early phase of economic development, labor and capital returns were divided roughly 37/63 or 40/60; now, capital returns overwhelmingly outpace labor returns, distorting the ratio to 80/20. Relying solely on selling one’s labor power through wage work makes it hard to achieve upward class mobility. Only by holding core capital and positioning for emerging industries can people share in the dividends from technological revolutions. Third, the solidification of global social strata keeps deepening. In the past, social mobility was extremely high, and ordinary people could turn things around if they dared to take risks and fight for opportunities. Today, high-quality education, capital connections, and information resources are highly concentrated. Differences in one’s original family circumstances are difficult to erase through effort alone. The wealth Gini coefficient continues to rise; income and wealth inequality keeps widening. Future cycle dividends may further concentrate among a small number of groups.

Many ordinary people feel lost and confused: once you can understand the big picture of cycles, but you lack substantial capital and professional research capability, how can you position yourself and ride the momentum at the era’s turning point? First, you must break away from fixed linear thinking. Abandon the outdated belief that hard work at promotions and saving money can steadily lead to wealth. Build a cyclical, non-linear logic of wealth, recognize that the era’s beta far exceeds an individual’s alpha, and never fight the trend of the big cycle against its direction. Second, learn to capture signals of cycle switching. Falling interest rates, marginal monetary easing, the commercialization and rollout of new technologies, a recovery in the venture capital and entrepreneurship sector, and equity markets gradually stabilizing—these are all clear signs of depression transforming into recovery. Sensing them early allows you to position one step ahead. Third, dare to take on rational and controllable risks. At the end of a depression, people across the board are generally pessimistic and conservative; they fear investing. At this time, asset valuations are at historic lows, competition in the market is relatively calm, and the risk-reward ratio is extremely favorable. Make an appropriate contrarian layout and calmly wait for recovery and prosperity to deliver substantial returns. Fourth, build a diversified income structure. Relying on a single career income is extremely risky amid technological iterations and industry shifts. Combine wage income with investment and light-asset side businesses to withstand sudden shocks such as layoffs or the decline of a track. Finally, persist in lifelong continuous evolution. In the new era, the depreciation speed of knowledge and skills is very fast. Keeping up with new tools such as AI to improve efficiency and updating your knowledge system is what prevents you from being eliminated by technological revolutions and helps you maintain your own core competitiveness.

Zhou Jintao left behind practical operational guidance as early as 2016: reduce holdings of speculative real estate and old equity, allocate to large-category assets like gold, keep cash on hand to lie low and rest, and let your mind and body settle down—then wait for the cycle turning point to return. This strategy has been tested by the market over many years and perfectly matches the survival rules of depression cycles. The logic of making money differs drastically across cycle stages. In prosperity, all assets tend to rise broadly, and investing with your eyes closed generally yields profits. In recession, bubbles burst, and selecting stocks and positioning assets becomes extremely strict. In depression, cash is king; you must patiently wait for opportunities to buy at the bottom. In recovery, you hold an overweight position in emerging sectors and capture the fastest opportunities for wealth growth. Today, as old and new cycles replace each other, old industries keep clearing out and fading, while new technology-driven business formats are starting to sprout. The masses are trapped by long depression and pessimistic sentiment, unable to see opportunities. A small number of sharp-eyed early movers have already quietly looked ahead and positioned themselves.

The three main lines of opportunity in the sixth Kondratieff cycle are clear and straightforward, but you must stay rational, avoid pitfalls, and refuse theme-based hype. Artificial intelligence will comprehensively penetrate healthcare, manufacturing, finance, and the entire service industry—reshaping business models across all sectors—and this will be the core theme over the next decade. But you must avoid concept bubbles that merely tell stories without grounded scenarios and without revenue and profit. Focus instead on hard-core, high-demand areas such as computing power and semiconductor domestic substitution. The global energy transition is irreversible. Solar PV, wind power, energy storage, new energy vehicles, hydrogen energy, and controllable nuclear fusion form trillion-level long-term tracks. Capital will continue to pour into these areas, and you need to deeply work on niche segments that have technical barriers and a supply chain with core orders. Biotechnology breakthroughs based on mRNA, gene editing, cell therapy, synthetic biology, and brain-computer interfaces will reshape the entire ecology of healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing. The professional threshold is relatively high. Ordinary people are better off participating indirectly through compliant industry funds and leading enterprises, and staying away from small-scale niche fraud projects.

It is necessary to objectively and rationally correct the mystical, anxiety-driven interpretations that have been overhyped across the vast network of media platforms. Kondratieff cycles are a rule of macro slow variables. There is no absolute turning point precise to specific natural years. 2026 is not the immediate start of an across-the-board bull market; it is only the turning point after a long period of grinding out the bottom. What marketing often calls a “last-ever wealth window that never returns” is a traffic-driven sales phrase. Technology will always create new opportunities. It’s just that the era of broad-based market-wide gains for the general public is ending; in the future, only professional and more refined structural opportunities will remain. Zhou Jintao’s core has never been extreme bearish or extreme bullish. His focus has always been matching the cycle position with the appropriate asset allocation, moving dialectically and riding the trend—never a life-or-death, gambling-style speculation.

Life is never able to escape being swept up by cycles. Personal honor or disgrace, ups and downs in wealth strata—these have long been deeply embedded in the long-cycle logic of Kondratieff cycles. In 2026, the old world accelerates toward dissolution, and the new world quietly emerges. The cycle will not pause because of ignorance; it will not slow down because of fear. It will always move forward in accordance with objective laws, rolling on. This is a difficult era of bottoming out, and also a wealth redistribution era encountered once in a century. In the coming five to ten years, the direction will be set for how personal wealth is shaped over the next thirty years. If you understand the cycles, respect the rules, make rational plans, and hold long-term resolve—without blindly following public sentiment, without clinging to short-term bubbles, and without using excessive leverage to engage in gambler-style speculation—you can stand in the era’s window, live facing the light, and seize the era dividends brought by the sixth Kondratieff cycle.

History will never simply repeat itself, but it will always rhyme with recurring cycles. After every great depression, there will inevitably come an unusually long prosperity. Era dividends are never distributed equally; they are only gifted to those who understand the cycle, endure the winter, and take decisive positions at turning points. One’s life becomes wealthy thanks to Kondratieff cycles. When opportunities arrive through the cycle, that is when ordinary people get to rewrite their fate.