Just came across this fascinating historical chart from Samuel Benner back in 1875 – the guy was actually onto something interesting about market cycles. He mapped out these periods when to make money by breaking down financial history into three distinct phases, and honestly, the pattern is worth understanding even if you don't treat it as gospel.

So here's how it works. First, there are panic years – roughly every 18 to 20 years, markets go into crisis mode. We're talking 1927, 1945, 1965, 1981, 1999, 2019, and the theory projects 2035 and beyond. During these periods, the advice is straightforward: don't panic sell. Just sit tight and wait it out.

Then you've got the boom years. These are the golden windows when prices are rising and markets are recovering strong. Think 1928, 1935, 1943, and jumping forward to more recent ones like 2000, 2007, 2016, 2020. The pattern suggests we might see another one around 2026 – which is literally happening now. These boom periods are when you want to consider taking profits and selling your positions.

The third category is the recession and decline years – 1924, 1931, 1942, 1951, and more recently 2005, 2012, 2023. Prices are depressed, the economy is struggling, and this is when savvy investors typically load up. You buy stocks, land, commodities at bargain prices and then hold until the next boom cycle hits.

The whole framework boils down to timing the market through these cycles. Buy when everything's cheap and everyone's scared (recession phase), then sell when prices are high and sentiment is euphoric (boom phase). Avoid getting liquidated during panic years by staying calm and strategic.

Now, important caveat here – this isn't some immutable law of nature. Markets today are way more complex than they were in Benner's era. You've got geopolitical shocks, technological disruption, policy interventions, wars, and a thousand other variables that weren't in play back then. But as a framework for understanding long-term market behavior and identifying periods when to make money, it's a useful historical lens.

The real takeaway is that markets do move in cycles, and if you understand where we are in that cycle, you can make smarter decisions about when to be aggressive and when to be defensive. Whether Benner's exact timeline holds up or not, the principle of buying low and selling high remains timeless.