Just stumbled upon this fascinating historical theory about market cycles that's been bouncing around trading communities. It's based on Samuel Benner's work from way back in 1875, where he tried to map out periods when to make money by identifying patterns in boom, recession, and panic cycles.

The idea is pretty straightforward actually. Benner broke down market behavior into three distinct periods. First, there are the panic years – roughly every 18 to 20 years – when financial crises hit hard. Think 1927, 1945, 1965, 1981, 1999, 2019, and the theory suggests 2035, 2053 coming up. During these periods, the advice is don't panic sell. Just hold tight.

Then you've got the boom years where prices actually recover and rise significantly. These are considered the periods when to make money by selling and taking profits. The list includes years like 1928, 1943, 1960, 1973, 1989, 2000, 2007, 2016, 2020, with 2026 and 2034 projected ahead. Basically the windows to exit positions at higher valuations.

The third category is the recession and decline phase – the hard times when prices are depressed and economies slow down. Here's where it gets interesting for buyers. Years like 1924, 1931, 1958, 1978, 1985, 2005, 2012, 2023, 2032 are marked as ideal accumulation periods. This is when you load up on stocks, land, commodities at discounted prices and just wait for the boom cycle to roll around again.

Obviously this isn't some magic formula. Markets get shaped by politics, wars, technological disruptions, economic policy shifts – way too many variables to reduce everything to a cycle. But as a historical framework for understanding long-term market behavior and periods when to make money, it's genuinely useful for thinking about where we might be in the bigger picture. Worth keeping in your mental model even if you don't trade strictly by it.