244 cycles is too many for daily use. This kit is the 15 that matter most for what’s happening in markets, the economy, and geopolitics right now. The practical minimum you can orient with in real time.
Structure: four layers. Engine: what drives the economy. Timing: what dates the breaks. Epoch: what defines the era. Filters: what confirms or denies signals.
I. Engine: what drives the economy
1. Howell’s Global Liquidity Cycle (~65 months)
Michael Howell’s discovery: global liquidity moves in a sinusoidal ~65-month wave. Liquidity isn’t just central bank printing, it’s the sum of all credit sources: bank lending, collateral values, capital flows. When liquidity rises, almost everything goes up. When it contracts, almost everything falls. One of the strongest macro signals you can track.
Now: Per Howell’s model, the liquidity wave is approaching its peak ~2025 Q3–Q4. After that, contraction through ~2027.
2. Fed Interest Rate Cycle (~3–5 years)
The Federal Reserve raises rates until something breaks, then cuts until inflation returns. This cycle dictates the cost of credit worldwide, because the dollar is the reserve currency. Fed rates affect mortgage prices, corporate debt, EM currencies, crypto risk appetite. The global financial center of gravity.
Now: The Fed is holding high for longer than the market expected. A cutting cycle is approaching, but pace depends on inflation and the labor market.
3. Credit Cycle (~5–8 years)
Bank lending expansion and contraction. When confidence is high, lending grows, collateral values rise, standards loosen. When it breaks, banks pull back, collateral falls, lending freezes. This is the heartbeat underneath all asset price movements.
Now: The cycle is shifted due to COVID, the artificial freeze of 2020 + massive stimulus distorted the natural rhythm. Currently in a late compression phase. Commercial RE debt and private credit (shadow banking) are the primary risk zones.
4. Juglar Investment Cycle (~7–11 years)
The business investment cycle: companies invest in capacity when demand grows, until the investment wave creates overcapacity. Then, contraction, bankruptcies, restructuring. Juglar is the cycle most people simply call a “recession.”
Now: Like the credit cycle, shifted by COVID. The artificial stimulus of 2020–2021 created an investment wave now colliding with high-rate reality. The AI investment surge is masking overall cycle fatigue.
II. Timing: what dates the breaks
5. Benner Cycle (~16–18-year recurrence)
19th-century farmer Samuel Benner observed that panics, prosperity, and depression repeat at predictable intervals. His cycle dates US financial panics with striking accuracy across 150+ years. Not because it works mystically, but because it reflects real debt and investment rhythms.
Now: Benner points to panic/crisis years ~2026. Coincides with Howell’s liquidity contraction and the RE cycle peak.
6. 18.6-Year Real Estate Cycle (Harrison / Anderson / Patel)
Fred Harrison, Philip Anderson, and Vince Patel documented a remarkably precise real estate cycle: roughly every 18.6 years, RE markets peak and then crash. The mechanism: land price speculation, credit expansion, regulatory neglect. The cycle has repeated since the 19th century: 1973, 1989, 2008, the intervals are strikingly consistent.
Now: 2008 + 18.6 = ~2026–2027. This is the RE cycle peak/break zone. High rates have already pushed affordability to historic lows. China’s RE crisis is already underway.
7. Bitcoin Halving Cycle (~4 years)
Every 210,000 blocks (~4 years), Bitcoin emission is cut in half. Historically, each halving is followed by a 12–18 month bull market, then a 70–80% correction. The BTC cycle increasingly correlates with global liquidity (Howell). The halving effect is diminishing, but the structure persists, especially as institutional capital (ETFs) enters.
Now: Last halving, April 2024. Historical models point to a cycle peak ~2025 Q3–Q4. Coincides with Howell’s liquidity peak.
8. Long-Term Debt Supercycle (Dalio) (~75–100 years)
Ray Dalio’s supercycle: economies systematically accumulate debt over decades until debt becomes too large and the system must “write it down”, through inflation, defaults, or currency devaluation. US federal debt exceeds $36 trillion, debt-to-GDP is above 120%. The last time this cycle ended was 1930–1945: Depression, war, Bretton Woods.
Now: Late phase. Debt is no longer payable from growth, only from new debt. Interest payments exceed the defense budget. 2025–2026, a massive refinancing wall.
III. Epoch: what defines the era
9. Kondratiev Wave (~40–60 years)
The technology deployment supercycle. Each wave starts with a revolutionary technology (steam, railways, electricity, oil/automobiles, IT/internet), passes through euphoria, crisis, and maturity. The current wave (5th) began ~1970s with the IT revolution.
Now: “Winter” phase, the old technology is fully mature, while the new one isn’t yet generating broad productivity growth. Whether AI is the beginning of the 6th wave or a bubble at the end of the 5th, that’s the key question.
10. Hegemonic Cycle (Dalio / Modelski) (~100–250 years)
A superpower rises through innovation and productivity, dominates through military and financial power, and declines through excessive debt, internal fracture, and military overextension. Netherlands, Britain, US, the same sequence. This is the meta-cycle: all other cycles — debt, liquidity, military — are subsets of this one.
Now: US late phase. China rising. BRICS, de-dollarization, tech blockades, tools of hegemonic transition. Multiple simultaneous conflicts, a classic late-hegemony feature.
11. Generational Cycle (Australian model) (~15–20 years)
Every ~15–20 years, a new generation enters the active stage with a fundamentally different relationship to technology, work, consumption, and risk. Mark McCrindle (Australia) defined this model most clearly: each generation — Gen Z, Gen Alpha, Gen Beta — changes not just what they buy, but how they think about money, work, institutions, and the world.
Now: Gen Z dominates labor market entry and consumption trends. From 2026, Gen Beta begins, the first generation born into a world where AI is the norm, not a novelty. A structural inflection point: consumption patterns, technology adoption, and labor market expectations all shift. Coincides with the 2025–2027 convergence window.
IV. Filters: what confirms or denies signals
12. Secular Bull/Bear Cycle (~15–25-year trends)
Stock markets move in long-term directions: secular bull markets (1982–2000, 2009–?) or secular bear markets (1966–1982, 2000–2009). The secular direction determines whether cyclical corrections are buying opportunities or part of a long decline.
Now: The secular bull has been running since 2009. The question, whether this is already the late phase, or AI extends the cycle. If Howell’s liquidity contracts in 2026–2027, that will be the test.
13. Commodity Supercycle (~20–30 years)
Commodities move in long cycles: underinvestment → shortage → price spike → investment wave → oversupply → price collapse. After a decade of underinvestment in oil production and mining, many analysts (Zoltan Pozsar, Luke Gromen) argue a new commodity supercycle has begun.
Now: Early/mid phase. Energy transition + geopolitical fragmentation = long-term price support. This is a filter: if commodities rise, inflation doesn’t retreat, and the Fed’s dilemma deepens.
14. Minsky Credit Cycle (~5–10 years to “the moment”)
Hyman Minsky described how stability breeds instability: a safe environment encourages ever-greater risk-taking, until the system transitions from hedging to speculation to Ponzi financing. The “Minsky moment”, when the system suddenly realizes the emperor has no clothes. 2008 was a classic Minsky moment.
Now: Commercial RE debt, private credit (shadow banking), and EM dollar-denominated debt, the primary Minsky risk zones. Filter: when these segments start breaking, the cycle confirms.
15. China Credit Impulse (~18–24-month waves)
China’s credit impulse, the flow of new credit as a share of GDP, is one of the strongest global economic indicators with a 9–12 month lag. When China stimulates, global commodities, European exports, and EM markets rise. When it contracts, everything falls.
Now: China is stimulating again after its RE crisis, but the impulse is weaker than in previous cycles. Filter: if China’s impulse isn’t strong enough, global growth lacks a floor.
Convergence: 2025–2027
Of the 15 cycles in this kit, 11 point to the same 2025–2027 window as a peak, break, or structural shift zone:
Howell’s liquidity: peak ~2025 Q3–Q4, contraction through 2027 · Fed rates: cutting cycle beginning · Credit cycle: late compression phase (shifted by COVID) · Juglar: investment fatigue (shifted by COVID) · Benner: panic/crisis years ~2026 · 18.6-yr RE: peak/break zone (2008 + 18.6 = ~2026–2027) · BTC halving: cycle peak ~2025 Q3–Q4 · Dalio debt supercycle: refinancing wall 2025–2026 · Kondratiev: “winter” phase · Hegemonic: late US phase, escalation · Generational: Gen Beta beginning from 2026
When this many independent signals from different systems point to the same window, it’s worth listening. A crash isn’t guaranteed. But system vulnerability in this window is at maximum.
How to use this kit
These 15 cycles are not a forecasting tool, they’re an orientation system. When you see a headline, ask: which cycle is this happening in? What phase are we in? Is this signal or noise? When several cycles align, attention must be maximum. That’s why the 2025–2027 window is exceptional: the liquidity peak, the debt refinancing wall, the RE cycle top, the generational break, and the hegemonic transition all converge at once.