What on earth could a pig farmer from Ohio in the 1800s have to say about investments in 2024 and beyond?
Well, if you believe the arguments put forward in Samuel Benner’s 1872 popular and persistent pamphlet, Periods When to Make Money, which a certain George Tritch adapted and developed for use all the way up to 2059 (yes, you read that right), the answer is: plenty!
Periods When to Make Money has had a cult following ever since its creator came up with its cyclical, season-based theory of peaks and troughs in the market.
Benner wanted to overcome his own downturn in fortunes after going bankrupt, so he researched and wrote a book, Benner’s Prophecies of Future Ups and Downs in Prices, which some investors have sworn by ever since.
But what exactly is the infamous chart, Periods When to Make Money, and what does it predict? Do these predictions stand up to scrutiny? What’s the inspiration behind this mysterious document? And how does following its recommendations compare to other investment strategies?
The latest iteration of the Iron Point Financial blog breaks down these questions and more…
Understanding “Periods When to Make Money”
Benner allegedly based Periods When to Make Money on the idea of seasons in farming (e.g. “sow and plant in the Spring, harvest in the Fall). He used his agricultural background to speculate on rising and falling commodity prices, and came up with a 3-tiered system to explain his theories.
- “A Category Periods” — periods marked by market panics and price reversals, according to a 16/18/20-year pattern, in which you would expect significant losses in the stock market (a “bear market,” in modern investing vernacular).
- “B Category Periods” — good market periods with stable growth in which you would be well advised to sell, occurring in an 8/9/10-year pattern.
- “C Category Periods” — periods of low prices and market bottoms in which you would do well to buy stocks, repeating in a 3-6/2-5/4-7-year cycle (these periods are analogous to a “bull market”).
According to Benner’s theory, investors could make significant capital gains by timing their asset purchases and sales in tune with the categories described above. In short, Benner put forward Periods When to Make Money as a form of predictive analysis for the stock market.
What did George Tritch add to “Periods When to Make Money”?
It is hard to work out the exact details (Tritch and Benner are obscure figures in the broad scope of American history), but it seems that George Tritch, a businessman from Denver, CO, took Benner’s ideas and popularized them through the pamphlet most people associate Periods When to Make Money with today.
Although he did not change the basic three-category theory, he extended its application far beyond Benner’s original 1891 end-date, up to 2059, and added helpful visual aids to better explain each period category to investors.
In other words, we have Tritch to thank for Periods When to Make Money’s ongoing relevance (or, should we say, “persistent nuisance?”).
Reality-Checking “Periods When to Make Money”
Dubious Foundations
Let’s go back to the first paragraph of this article: Samuel Benner was a 19th-century pig farmer from Ohio. He had no financial or investment background.
And then let’s consider an even wackier thought: from what we can tell, Tritch was a strong proponent of financial astrology. What’s that, you ask? Exactly what it sounds like.
Tritch apparently linked the cycles in the chart to planetary orbits. In other words, for Tritch, the type of market period was determined by how close or far away the Sun or one of the other planets in our Solar System was from Earth.
It’s worth pausing there to ask a quick question: would you take financial advice from a fortune cookie?
For your sake, we really hope the answer was a firm no. (And to be completely clear: yes, we are equating Periods When to Make Money with the investment acumen of a takeout fortune cookie.)
Empirically Debunked
“Then why are we still talking about it?” You might reasonably query. Well, strangely enough, Tritch and Benner were accurate in their predictions… up to a point.
Periods When to Make Money mostly aligned with the economic effects of the Great Depression, World War II, the Dot-com Bubble, and the 2007-008 Financial Crisis, to name a few notable happenings of the past century.
However, “mostly aligned” and “exactly aligned” are not the same thing (and therefore costly for the prospective investor).
It is telling that any investment strategy based on Benner’s / Tritch’s theory vastly underperforms in comparison to a simple “buy-and-hold strategy” over the period we can measure.
Vasco Laranjo of Vasconomics points out that:
“…starting with a hypothetical $100 in 1904, strategy 2 [the best-performing strategy based on Tritch’s chart] would get to $5,432 by April 2023 versus $62,414 for the buy-and-hold strategy. That’s a 12-fold drop in performance! Even though strategy 2 appears to have been able to limit market drawdowns […] the decline in overall performance is simply too great.”
All of which is a way of saying: time in the market consistently beats trying to time the market over the long term. There are better strategies out there than “following your star sign,” tempting as that might seem.
Better Options for Investors
Now, let’s be clear: we’re not interested in telling you what to do, or dictating what your financial goals should be. As Greg Liszka, our President, has shared elsewhere:
“…my job is never to tell you you can’t do something (unless it’s so obviously unattainable); my job is to figure out how to make it happen for you. I’m not going to rain on your dreams… I’m here to fix problems.”
It is precisely because we want to see you achieve your goals that we have criticized Periods When to Make Money as an unreliable guide for your financial practice.
There are better ways to get there, and we want to help. With that in mind, here are a couple of things we’ve learned…
1. Results Over Time
It’s tempting to look at a simple “get-rich-quick” scheme like the one in the pamphlet and mindlessly adopt it, but as we indicated above, it’s based on the fallacy that “timing the market” is the best approach. Empirically, it’s not. Greg comes across this mistaken belief fairly often:
“People will come in and say, “Well, what’s the market doing today?” And nine times out of ten, I have no clue, unless I happen to hear it on the radio. I don’t care what the market’s doing today. It’s meaningless. You do more harm chasing that, letting that stress you out, than if you just develop a plan, stick to the plan, work the plan.”
Developing your own investment plan for the long-term, sticking to it, and working at it, are what ultimately count, not copying a disproven, 150-year-old formula.
If you get too emotionally or spiritually invested in what market indexes are doing day-to-day or season-to-season, you’re likely going to make decisions that leave you worse off in the long term (for more on that, see our case study in the next section).
2. Tailored Investing
One of the biggest attraction points of Periods When to Make Money is the seeming promise that you can avoid the losses associated with “bad years” by predicting them well in advance, and acting accordingly. This is especially enticing for those who note that Tritch & Benner’s chart had the greatest accuracy when predicting “panic seasons” (A Category Periods).
Again, however, we would suggest that there is a better way to protect yourself from downturn years: individualizing your investment approach to suit your unique background (goals, age, risk tolerance, etc.). As Greg puts it:
“I think we’re better able to set up for market volatility when we individualize it. I really do. Because if we can set the expectations correctly from the very beginning, and be open in our communication, then when market fluctuation does hit, they’re OK, because I’ve built in protections to whatever level they need them or want them.
When you run the math, this is the clear path to make it to their goals. We are investing. I’m in wealth management. We invest money. There will be down years. That’s probably the only guarantee that I can give somebody. At some point, we’re going to have a bad year. It will go down. I tell clients upfront.
Even if they laugh, I’m being honest: there’s going to be a bad year there, somewhere, but we’ve lived through it before, and we’re going to live through it again. And it’s going to be OK, as long as they don’t make an emotional decision.”
So when those tough times in the market do come, what do we believe the wisest course of action is? Think back to your goals. Focus on those. Consider the progress you’ve already made… and stick to your plan.
You might need to make the odd adjustment here or there, but retaining that personalized, big-picture perspective is what counts.
A Cautionary Tale (Case Study)
When Greg talked about making unwise, emotional decisions, he was speaking from his experience of a small minority of clients over the past twenty years. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical example based on that experience:
“Let’s say I had a client who was negative for the year. And let’s say it was because they kept calling me to make emotional decisions: “Get out of the market. Get into the market. Get out of the market. Get into the market.”
This kind of person gets out when it’s down, because that’s what makes them nervous, and then they wait until they feel better, and the market comes back, and they’ve established some confidence. So they sell low and buy high, and then sell low again, and then buy high again.
And I just can’t stop them from hurting themselves. It leads to very trying, emotional conversations for me because I know without a doubt that this is the wrong decision (financially speaking).”
If they would just pause, consider the big picture, and stick to the plan, it could be so different for them:
If you can go back and show them that, for the sake of argument, you started with $100,000, and now you have $750,000, then you can see that the plan works. Don’t ruin it now! And often, if they can see that, if they have that history, that relationship, then they’re OK.
The moral of the story: it’s advisable to focus on your own plan, not worry too much about what the market is doing, and listen to wise, reassuring counsel when it’s offered (especially when that advice comes from a fiduciary whose job it is to act in your best interests).
Preliminary Disclosures:
- The individuals and situations depicted here are hypothetical only, and do not represent the actual performance of any particular investments or strategy.
- All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.
- There is no assurance that any investment strategy will be successful.
Closing Remarks
The myth surrounding Periods When to Make Money suggests a level of predictability and control that, upon closer inspection, simply does not hold up to the complexity and unpredictability of global financial markets, or the most effective investment strategies.
We believe that investing is a marathon, not an interval training session. By coming up with a plan that suits your unique situation and sticking to it for the long term, you are far more likely to see consistent results, even accounting for down years.
Need Help Coming Up With a Plan?
If you like the idea of coming up with a plan that can help to set you up for decades to come, but you’re not sure where to start, why not reach out to Iron Point Financial today?
Or, if you don’t feel ready to talk to an adviser just yet, but you enjoyed this article on Periods When to Make Money, why not sign up for regular email updates from our blog, so that you don’t miss future posts?
Iron Point Financial is here to empower you to secure a brighter tomorrow. We operate physical offices in Grove City, PA and Greenville, PA.
We primarily serve residents of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Florida but we also have security registrations for 22 other states across the continental USA.
Further Reading
- 5 Wealth Management Strategies for Generational Impact
- The Financial Mentor You Need: 4 Expert Traits to Consider
- Tactical Asset Allocation: Controversial or Convenient?
- How to Find an Investment Consultant: 5 Things to Look For
- How to Avoid Emotional Investing (Investopedia)
Disclosures
- The views stated are not necessarily the opinion of Cetera and should not be construed directly or indirectly as an offer to buy or sell any securities mentioned herein.
- Due to volatility within the markets mentioned, opinions are subject to change without notice.
- Information is based on sources believed to be reliable; however, their accuracy or completeness cannot be guaranteed.
- Past performance does not guarantee future results.
