Friday, September 19, 2008
and now, for something completely different...
I just discovered there is a 105-year cycle in Women's Fashion. Alas, I don't have the original research, just the note someone did study such a cycle. Speculating that we are near the return of this cycle, the way back machine took me to this quote:
Most women's dress in this era was highly influenced by the advancing feminist cause, which after 1903 escalated to widespread civil disobedience by "Suffragettes" (radical suffragists). Women modeled their behavior and appearance upon the Gibson Girl the popular image of the "New Woman". Men's clothing styles such as the suit, shirt, hard collar and tie were worn by women forcing themselves into professions formerly occupied by men. Health fads of the 1890's and 1900's also encouraged women's sporting activities, particularly bicycling, which, in turn promoted sport clothing as a fashion.
image from costumes.orgLabels: cycles, sentiment
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Sunspots, War Cycles, and 2012
In November 2006, I published an article on the
relationship of War Cycles to the Sunspot cycle, a theory proposed by Alexander Chizhevsky in the early 1900s. It's a fascinating idea you might enjoy reading about if it is a new concept to you.
I recently discovered that the 2012 doomsday scenario is as well known among gamers as it is among traders. The April 2007 sunspot chart predicts a local high in
2012.
Wierd, eh?
"They flung mud at me," he [Chizhevsky] later wrote, "I was nicknamed not only 'sun-worshipper'—which I took for granted but also 'obscurantist' "
Labels: cycles, seasonals, sentiment
Bonnie Hill's Trading Pages
Delta and
PVAC users long ago discovered the treasure trove over at Bonnie Hill's cycle pages.
If you haven't visited
Bonnie Hill's site, mozy on over there and check out the vast resources she's collected, and keeps updated! She has recently added Ensign pages as well as a collection of general charting packages.
Have fun!
Labels: cycles, ensign, templates
Friday, November 10, 2006
Email address change, Remembrance Day, "War Cycles"
Email Address ChangeHello, all ye faithful readers! Due to some sort of hideous take-over of my email by some spambot, I've had to change my email (see sidebar). Just a heads up in the event that you don't receive a reply from me, or if your email to me is bounced.
Remembrance DayRemember the fallen soldiers this weekend, along with all that have fallen during any war, as all life is precious and each individual deserves remembrance. Peace to all beings
War CyclesThere are countless
theories as to the "why" of war, and a consensus is probably as elusive as to the "why" of life itself.
One thing is clear, humanity has enjoyed only brief intermittent spells of peace since historians thought to keep track of such a thing. Of all the theories, one stands out, that of
Alexander Chizhevsky, whose work proposes an 11-year sunspot cycle as the trigger for "major synchronic universal military and political events", ie, wars, revolutions, insurrections, and migrations. Chiz-who, you ask? No doubt you are more familiar with the name
Kondratieff when it comes to war cycles. The
K-wave is, however, 45 to 60 years in length, far longer than the 11-year sunspot cycle studied by Chizhevsky.
Kondratieff and Chizhevsky do share a similar tragic fate: imprisonment. Kondratieff's concept that there is an an inherent self-correcting mechanism that perpetuates capitalism lead to a long imprisonment and in 1938, after a second trial, execution at the young age of 46. At the core of Chizhevsky's sunspot research was the idea that the 1917 revolution was triggered not by a liberating communist ideology, but rather, the sun. Chizhevsky spent eight years in a GULAG but did escape with his life and was "rehabilitated" in 1958. Here is a
link to a short biography of Chizhevsky.
Sunspots have been observed as far back as 800 BC by Chinese astronomers. The first drawing of sunspots was by the monk John of Worcester in 1128. With the advent of the telescope in 1600, the skies opened themselves to even more disciplined record keeping in search of further knowledge of the sun. Leave it to the amateur German astronomer Samuel Schwabe, however, in 1843 to discover the rise and fall of yearly sunspot counts now called the sunspot cycle, which he estimated to be ten years. Pretty good work, Sam.
Chizhevsky's original work published in 1922 juxtaposed early sunspot records, from 500 BCE to 1914, with battles, revolutions, riots, and wars in Russia and 71 other countries during the same time. His published paper presented detailed tables of all the events, summarized in this chart.
from reprint of "Physical Factors of the Historical Process" in Cycles magazine, Jan 1971, a condensed abstract of Chizhevsky's work by Vladimir P. de Smitt
Chizhevsky writes, "Each cycle according to its historical psychological signs is divided into four parts (periods):
- I: ~3 years of minimum sunspot activity & minimum populace excitability.
[5% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- II: ~2 years, increasing sunspot activity & growth of populace excitability.
[20% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- III: ~3 years, maximum sunspot activity & peak of populace excitability.
[60% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
- IV: ~3 years, decreasing sunspot activity & decline of populace excitability.
[15% of all events in the 500 years he researched]
Where are we now in
the sunspot cycle?
Using Chizhevsky's model and the sunspot chart above, we have been in a declining period wherein,
there is lack of unity in human masses and indifference to political and military questions. [...] The results of these characteristics are Lack of any desire to struggle for the right or idea, easy capitulation, desertion, etc. Historical facts illustrating this period are peace treaties, capitulations, occupations, decrease or parlimentarianism, strength of autocracies, and the ruling of minorities
Interesting, isn't it?
Being now in the trough, of course, leads to an expanding period, one of theoretical growth of excitability. This period is fascinating, giving the current landscape. Its characteristics:
New leaders appear...new programs are worked out...political and military questions arise and begin to predominate the masses. The end of this period can prove stormy, producing impatient and nervous masses. The length of the period varies greatly, depending on the length and range of the sunspot [and local factors]. One of the most important properties...is the tendency of different nations to unite for common defense or aggression and the fusion of different political groups to oppose other groups. The three phases of this period are (1) originating of new ideas in the masses; (2) grouping of these ideas (3) crystallization of one predominant idea.
The paper is fascinating on many levels and well worth a read.
From a trader's perspective, we say that it isn't the news itself so much as the
reaction to the news that should get our trading attention. Similarly, an important distinction is that Chizhevsky considered solar activity a
triggering mechanism that excited existing grievances and complaints rather than the
causal agent of the human behavior itself, ie, it is the human reaction that matters.
If past is prologue,
fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride!
Labels: calendar-holidays, cycles, Journaling
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Gann & the Autumnal Equinox
As I
comment today on the other side, Friday marks the first day of the seventh lunar month, a new moon. Gann traders are familiar with this as "21 September", which of course is a moveable date more properly defined as the day of the Autumnal Equinox. For those not familiar with this, Daniel Ferrera offers some very interesting insights into Gann dates in his article,
Gann's Master Mathematical Formula For Market Predictions.
In this chart, berkut blends these two concepts on one chart: a Gann chart with a low from 2002 whose pivot falls on Rosh ha-Shanah in the year 5767.
click for larger image
Labels: cycles
Trading & Lunar Cycles
Trading & Lunar CylesAs with any trading methodology, like with pudding, the proof is in the eating, or, does it pay out. You'll enjoy
this thread at elitetrader.com by "yoohoo", who actively uses lunar cycles in his intraday trading. I have a sneaking suspicion I have seen yoohoo's trading first hand over the past two years and, aside from any justifications of "why" lunar cycles work, his real time 'call' on the lunar trade is pudding proof: yoohoo simply applies the ideas in a way that pays. [
final charts, read the thread for commentary]
click to enlarge
Fiction and Lunar CylesTom Drake has, as he so often does, dished up something a bit off the beaten track: comments on a new "financial thriller" book.
Here is the full article (page down a bit for the book part). Here is a snippet:
The novel isn't as well written as Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Lawrence Durrell or even Martin Cruz Smith. But it is about the financial markets and the fortuitous rediscovery of an ancient method of market timing, previously only known to "them"."
[
more from Tom].
More about Paradigm, a financial thriller by Robert Taylor, at
taylortrends.com I know zipola about Taylor or his methods, but I am always intrigued with what people are doing on the lunar front.
[ed: 23 Sep 06 edit of post originally published 09 Sep 06]Labels: chart-analysis, cycles
Wednesday, November 26, 2003
Thanksgiving, seasonality, the moon, sayonara in the wind
The air is prickly with portents! Aside from the vegetable soup of economic reports on Wednesday, the odds favor squeeking out one more run at a high. VTOreport.com (now defunct) long kept seasonality reports. Second only to the last trading day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving has the highest odds for being an up day. Couple that with the "Turn of month buying spree" and the peak in the moon gains odds... you'd start thinking back up the truck! But wait...
When there is so much good, the odds are
the rally is on its last legs. Time to say sayonara.
135m chart ES :::
Daily SPX :::
65m SPX :::
Weekly SPXLabels: cycles, seasonals
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Moon Gains
A reminder of statistical odds. Today the New Moon is in Sagittarius and is conjoined with a total solar eclipse, which is best viewed from Antarctica, a place not likely on the media frenzy agenda. In simple terms, lunar odds favor a net rise into the next 4-5 days.
Labels: cycles
