more armstrong........the plot thickens, page-37

9lives,

Very interesting stuff. Knowing how markets work in such an organised fashion on all levels means you also can't discount completely this kind of mumbo-jumbo cycle analysis.

Obviously, as pointed out by other posters it's quite possible to line up dates with events retrospectively. The proof of the pudding is trying to predict this stuff and whether it can actually help improve trading outcomes.

Although I'm very sceptical about the preciseness of this type of model, anyway, just for a bit of fun , seeing GM and co are perhaps? going bust and this could co-incide with a market spike low I thought I'd throw some dates into the political cycle model and see what happens. lol. Of course the political cycle model may not be appropriate for private enterprise - who knows?

So, I decided to take the GM incorporation date of 16/9/1908 as the (political) system start date. Then I assumed GM will actually collapse and this happens soon. So using a (political) collapse date around about now, using your algebrae I calculated a decline date of approx 1984. Now that didn't really sound right as I thought 1973 oil crisis would be more logical.

Anyway, in 1984 there was a major strike over working conditions, pensions etc resolved which was resolved via a "JobBank" agreement signed 21 Sep 1984. This looked after the workers but means GM has been paying billions each year to ex-workers etc from that date on. Doesn't really sound like the start of a decline but who knows - maybe pinpoints when GM culture got softer and started looking after its workers and not focusing on its survival/growth that it started to decline.

Anyway, the net result is from those 2 dates I calculated a collapse date of 1st Dec 2008. Later after I'd calculated this I think I read somewhere the next meeting is 2nd Dec so that's only 1 day out. If the bailout is knocked back at that time then the model is right!?!

Do we cheer for the model or for GM?

So now we wait and see what happens...