|  DEC 1987

Cycles without tears by Hans Hannula, Ph.D.

Cycles without tears by Hans Hannula, Ph.D. No doubt you have seen the ad in The Wall Street Journal for the book Math Without Tears . Well, this is how to find cycles without math and, therefore, without tears. Even though I have done a lot of technical work on cycles (See Stocks & Commodities, ""In Search of the Cause of Cycles,"" March 1987), I still find the required mathematical skills are difficult for many people. Further, a lot of the mathematical techniques used to find cycles are tricky in that they require a great deal of care to produce valid results. Most techniques also cannot tell you that a cycle bottomed today, due to delay effects inherent in the calculations. But there is a simple, easy way to find repeated event patterns in the market. If you can use grid paper, a pencil and a straightedge, you can master this technique in five minutes.

by Hans Hannula, Ph.D., RSA, CTA