Cycles & Pattern in the Markets

Cycles & Pattern in the Markets

Euro Fractal Trading System by Cynthia Marcy, Erol Bortucene

Cycles & Pattern in the Markets     There are many types of business cycles including those that impact the stock market.^[1] In his book The Next Great Bubble Boom, Guna, a Harvard graduate and Fortune 100 consultant, outlines several cycles that have specific relevance to the stock market.^[2] Some of these cycles have been quantitatively examined for statistical significance. The major cycles of the stock market include:

• The four-year presidential cycle in theUS.
• Annualseasonality, also known as Sell in May or the Halloween indicator^[3]
• The “January effect“^[4]
• The lunar cycle^[5]
• The 17.6 Year Stock Market Cycle^[6]

Investment advisor Mark Hulbert has tracked the long-term performance of Norman Fosback’s a Seasonality Timing System that combines month-end and holiday-based buy/sell rules. According to Hulbert, this system has been able to outperform the market with significantly less risk.^[7] According to Stan Weinstein there are four stages in a major cycle of stocks, stock sectors or the stock market as a whole. These four stages are (1) consolidation or base building (2) upward advancement (3) culmination (4) decline.^[8]