Market Cycles Will Endure as Long as Humans Exist
Four of the most dangerous words in the investment world are “It’s different this time.”
The long current economic expansion and bull market doesn’t mean market cycles are dead.
Photographer: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images
Financial historians have written about the cycles of the past, and investment strategists write about the cycles of the present. But what about the next cycle? And the one after that? Will there even be cycles in the future, or have they become outmoded?
Economies and markets have never moved in a straight line in the past, and neither will they do so in the future. To understand what the future holds in terms of cycles, investors first have to understand why cycles happen, where they stand in the current one, and what they can learn from it.