Just came across something interesting about market cycles that got me thinking. There's this old theory from Samuel Benner back in 1875 where he tried to map out when financial markets tend to boom, crash, or recover. Sounds outdated right? But the pattern he identified is actually pretty wild when you look at history.

Basically he broke it down into three periods when to make money or when to stay cautious. First, there are the panic years - roughly every 18 to 20 years, these are when financial crises hit hard. We saw them around 1927, 1945, 1965, 1981, 1999, 2019, and the theory suggests 2035 coming up. During these periods, the advice is simple: don't panic sell. Just hold and wait it out.

Then you've got the boom years, which are basically the opposite. Markets are recovering, prices are climbing, and these are your windows to actually sell and take profits. The list includes years like 1928, 1943, 1960, 1980, 1989, 2000, 2007, 2016, 2020. Interesting thing is 2026 is marked as a boom year in this cycle - which is literally right now. So technically we're in one of those periods when investors should be looking to exit positions at higher prices.

The third type is the recession phase where everything's down. Prices are cheap, economy's sluggish, and honestly? This is when smart money buys. Years like 1924, 1931, 1942, 1958, 1978, 1985, 1996, 2005, 2012, 2023 fall into this category. The strategy here is straightforward: accumulate assets when they're cheap, then hold until the boom comes around.

So the whole framework is pretty simple if you think about it - buy when things are down, sell when they're up, and don't get shaken out during the panics. It's almost like a long-term playbook for when periods present real opportunities to make money.

Obviously this isn't gospel. Markets are way more complex now with geopolitics, tech disruptions, policy changes, and a thousand other variables that Benner couldn't have predicted in 1875. But as a historical pattern? It's worth paying attention to. Gives you a different perspective on these longer-term cycles everyone seems to be missing.