Just came across this fascinating historical chart that's been circulating, and honestly it's making me think differently about how we should be positioning for the next year or so.

So there's this old document from Samuel Benner, an Ohio farmer who back in 1875 figured out something interesting about market cycles. He published his findings in a book called "Benner's Prophecies" and basically mapped out repeating patterns of economic booms and crashes. What caught my attention is how eerily accurate some of these historical predictions have been.

The chart breaks down into three distinct cycles. First, there are the panic years—roughly every 16-20 years when markets tank. Then you've got the boom periods, the times when assets peak and it's smart to cash out. And critically, there are the buying windows, those hard times when prices crash and smart money starts accumulating.

What's wild is how these periods when to make money align with actual historical events. Looking back at the years Benner flagged as good times—1926, 1953, 1972, 1989, 2007, 2016—most of those were genuinely strong market years before corrections hit. The buying opportunities he marked? 1931, 1942, 1958, 1978, 1985, 2005, 2012, 2023... yeah, those were the years when patient investors could load up cheap.

Here's what's interesting for right now: according to this framework, 2026 is positioned as one of those good years. It's supposed to be a period of high prices and strong conditions. If we look at the cycle intervals, it actually lines up with the pattern we've been seeing.

I'm not saying this 150-year-old chart is gospel, but the fact that the periods when to make money have held up this well historically makes it hard to ignore. Whether it's pure coincidence or actual market psychology repeating itself, the pattern suggests we should be thinking about positioning for strength this year and watching for the next buying window that comes after.

Obviously do your own research, but if you're trying to understand the bigger picture of where cycles might be heading, this historical lens is actually pretty useful. The patterns repeat, the periods when to make money keep happening like clockwork—that's the real takeaway here.