The Benner Dow

Benner’s Prophecies – Future up and down in prices was written in 1875. Samuel Benner was a prosperous farmer wiped out financially by the 1873 panic. He turned to wheat farming in Ohio and took up the statistical study of price movements as a hobby to find, if possible, the answers to the recurring ups and downs in business. He noted that highs of the business tend to follow a repeating 8-9-10 yearly pattern. With respect to economic low points, he noted two series of time sequences indicating that recessions (bad times) and depressions (panics) tend to alternate. The panic years reflect a repeating 16-18-20 pattern. E R Dewey, Director of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles, assessed Benner’s pig iron price forecasts over a 60 year period and regarded this cycle as showing a gain to loss ratio of 45 to 1, which was “the most notable forecast of prices in existence”. Benner’s cycle worked well throughout the 20th century and was a very good indicator of US crises and/or recessions. These cycles were aligned with observed chronological trends. Frost and Prechter republished the Benner Cycle and updated it in 1978. We have updated the Benner cycles. They suggest a top in 2010, a slowdown and low in 2011 a cycle high again till 2019 and then depression in 2021. But before the depression, the Benner cycle suggests multi year prosperity. We have also updated the Benner Cycle for Sensex India, Brazilian BVSP and SSEC Shanghai Index. The Benner cycle does not work on Gold, Oil and currencies.