David McKinn concluded in a book published in 1995 (Astro Economics and the 56 Year Cycle): A 56 year cycle has been established in trends of US and Western European financial crises since 1760 (Funk, 1932; McMinn, 1997). Clearly many major financial crises are precipitated by some mechanism, as they tend to occur preferentially in patterns of the 56 year cycle and not as random events. Numerous cosmic factors were examined for some link with the timing of financial crises. Astrology and sunspots were the initial areas favoured for assessment but no significance could be realised despite a gamut of hypotheses being tested. This was hardly surprising, as rigorous research has offered little support for traditional astrological theory (Dean & Mather, 1978; Culver & Ianna, 1984). However, the 56 year cycle was found to correlate very closely with cycles of the Sun and Moon.

36 Year Cycle: As a test of the proposed hypotheses of 9, 18, 24, 36, 56 year business cycle in the US economy by Jim Funk, we took the yearly closing prices of the S&P Index from 1800 until 2002 and ran a proprietary band pass filter (i.e., phase-corrected) on the time series. The results were rather surprising in certain respects. The largest cycle currently in the S&P index was the 36 - year cycle and it appears to has been present since the early 1800s. We also found regular cycles at 6 years, 18 years and 24 years. However, in the 1930s the 56-year cycle was the largest cycle so Jim Funk was correct for his day!

The significant finding in this quick look was that for the first time since 1800 all of the major cycles have reached a top on/prior to 1998 and they are all headed down. We summed these cycles and projected them forward thru 2030. If these cycles are real business cycles, we are heading into a Great Mayan Bear with a final bottom predicted in 2021. The results are shown in following chart.

Is there a 100% probability the Great Mayan Bear agrees with the London Business School? The claws on the mythical Super Mayan Bear may reach until 2021 but he will not really show them until 2012 when it will be too late to run!

Warning: The Great Mayan Bear in your rear view mirror may be closer than it appears.

The predictions with any type of market cycles such as the 36-year cycle maybe only statistically significant and cannot be used to predict financial trends precisely. There is not sufficient longterm data on the US economy but such cycles have existed for centuries in pig iron, wheat and other commodity prices in England. All forecasting is prone to error and to base your investment strategies on such information is fraught with danger. No investment advice, implied or otherwise, is given or intended to be construed as being given from the Holy Souls web site or its associated links including this one. This site is mainly to provide information possible future cycle trends and should be treated with caution to predict future market trends or coming market crashes as cycles have not yet predicted all such events. Therefore, to the fullest extent possible under the law, Dr Stephen A Rinehart disclaims any liability for damage or loss arising from persons acting, or failing to act, on the basis of any such statement, opinion, suggestion or information, whether through either negligence or any other reason whatsoever.