Cycle Navigator

The Invest Collective research groupThe Invest Collective research group

Each cycle framework is drawn on its own scale, over the span this project transcribed: Generational (Fourth Turning) from 1435, Business / credit cycle from 1899-06, Market / liquidity conditions from 1971-01-08, every one running up to today. Where a publisher’s own record begins earlier than the transcription, that lane says so. Every boundary names the publication it was transcribed from.

How to read this chart

  • Measured lanes transcribe dated turning points or a rule the publisher states. Interpretive lanes are a reading.
  • Shade distinguishes phases within a lane. It does not rank them.
  • A soft edge between phases is the range the source published for that transition. A hard edge is a single published date.
  • Recession shading is an independent NBER layer. It is not corroboration of any lane.
  • At narrow widths some short phases are thinner than one pixel and merge visually. The dates are unchanged.
  • Era names are a separate published chronology. They are not corroboration of any lane.
  • A band that fades at its right edge is the last published phase running past the last dated boundary. It is not an assessment of today.
  • Height shows where a framework sits in its own published cycle. It is not a measurement of size, severity or strength. Only duration is drawn to scale.
  • A dot marks a published boundary on the curve, and its callout names the phase that boundary opens. A boundary with no callout is one the lane had no room to name, not one the page is withholding.

Generational (Fourth Turning)

  • High
  • Awakening
  • Unraveling
  • Crisis

Business / credit cycle

  • Expansion
  • Contraction

Market / liquidity conditions

  • Tight
  • Loose

Recession shading

  • NBER peak to trough

Each framework on its own scale

Current reading — 2026-Q3. Next scheduled update: August 30, 2026.

Generational (Fourth Turning)

Interpretive
15001600170018001900
  1. Unraveling — published start 1435
  2. Crisis — published start 1459
  3. High — published start 1487
  4. Awakening — published start 1517
  5. Unraveling — published start 1542
  6. Crisis — published start 1569
  7. High — published start 1594
  8. Awakening — published start 1621
  9. Unraveling — published start 1649
  10. Crisis — published start 1675
  11. High — published start 1704
  12. Awakening — published start 1727
  13. Unraveling — published start 1746
  14. Crisis — published start 1773
  15. High — published start 1794
  16. Awakening — published start 1822
  17. Unraveling — published start 1844
  18. Crisis — published start 1860
  19. High — published start 1865
  20. Awakening — published start 1886
  21. Unraveling — published start 1908
  22. Crisis — published start 1929
  23. High — published start 1946
  24. Awakening — published start 1964
  25. Unraveling — published start 1984

We read Strauss and Howe’s generational turnings across the Anglo-American saeculum, on the authors’ own four-phase cycle.· Strauss & Howe (1997)· Last published boundary 1984· Current phase — Unraveling· Recession shading is drawn from 1899-06, the first NBER contraction drawn on this lane; NBER publishes contractions from 1854-12, earlier than the shading begins.

About this framework
Who proposed it
We take this lane from William Strauss and Neil Howe, who set it out in Generations and The Fourth Turning — the one framework here we read rather than measure.
What it claims
They argue that Anglo-American life moves through a recurring saeculum: four generational turnings — High, Awakening, Unraveling, Crisis — each about a generation long, turned by the ageing of the archetypes born into each mood.
What it can’t tell you
We hold it loosely, and so should you. Academic historians largely reject it; in its strong form it is non-falsifiable, and it fits the record cleanly only after the fact. So we keep it as a lens on generational mood, never a predictor or a timing tool. Its saeculum reaches back to 1435, and the whole of that span is drawn here.
Read the research

Business / credit cycle

Measured
19001925195019752000
  1. Contraction — published start 1899-06
  2. Expansion — published start 1900-12
  3. Contraction — published start 1902-09
  4. Expansion — published start 1904-08
  5. Contraction — published start 1907-05
  6. Expansion — published start 1908-06
  7. Contraction — published start 1910-01
  8. Expansion — published start 1912-01
  9. Contraction — published start 1913-01
  10. Expansion — published start 1914-12
  11. Contraction — published start 1918-08
  12. Expansion — published start 1919-03
  13. Contraction — published start 1920-01
  14. Expansion — published start 1921-07
  15. Contraction — published start 1923-05
  16. Expansion — published start 1924-07
  17. Contraction — published start 1926-10
  18. Expansion — published start 1927-11
  19. Contraction — published start 1929-08
  20. Expansion — published start 1933-03
  21. Contraction — published start 1937-05
  22. Expansion — published start 1938-06
  23. Contraction — published start 1945-02
  24. Expansion — published start 1945-10
  25. Contraction — published start 1948-11
  26. Expansion — published start 1949-10
  27. Contraction — published start 1953-07
  28. Expansion — published start 1954-05
  29. Contraction — published start 1957-08
  30. Expansion — published start 1958-04
  31. Contraction — published start 1960-04
  32. Expansion — published start 1961-02
  33. Contraction — published start 1969-12
  34. Expansion — published start 1970-11
  35. Contraction — published start 1973-11
  36. Expansion — published start 1975-03
  37. Contraction — published start 1980-01
  38. Expansion — published start 1980-07
  39. Contraction — published start 1981-07
  40. Expansion — published start 1982-11
  41. Contraction — published start 1990-07
  42. Expansion — published start 1991-03
  43. Contraction — published start 2001-03
  44. Expansion — published start 2001-11
  45. Contraction — published start 2007-12
  46. Expansion — published start 2009-06
  47. Contraction — published start 2020-02
  48. Expansion — published start 2020-04

We read the NBER Committee’s dated US expansions and contractions, at the month precision it publishes.· NBER· Last published boundary 2020-04· Current phase — Contraction· NBER publishes from 1854-12; this lane transcribes from 1899-06, leaving 21 published boundaries earlier than it draws.

About this framework
Who proposed it
We take this lane from the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee — the National Bureau of Economic Research body whose job is to date US expansions and contractions.
What it claims
They read the US economy as moving between expansion and contraction, and they mark the peaks and troughs that divide the two. Those dates come from the Committee weighing a spread of indicators by judgement, not from any mechanical rule about back-to-back quarters of falling output.
What it can’t tell you
It tells you where the cycle has been, not where it stands now or where it is heading — the Committee dates each turning point in hindsight, often long after it passed. There are only the two phases, and they say nothing about how deep a downturn ran or what set it off. So we read this lane as a record of what the economy did, never a read on what it will do next.
Read the research

Market / liquidity conditions

Measured
19801990200020102020
  1. Tight — published start 1971-01-08
  2. Loose — published start 1972-09-15
  3. Tight — published start 1973-01-19
  4. Loose — published start 1975-05-23
  5. Tight — published start 1975-09-19
  6. Loose — published start 1975-12-12
  7. Tight — published start 1978-03-31
  8. Loose — published start 1983-04-08
  9. Tight — published start 1983-10-28
  10. Loose — published start 1984-01-13
  11. Tight — published start 1984-04-06
  12. Loose — published start 1984-11-16
  13. Tight — published start 1987-04-10
  14. Loose — published start 1987-08-14
  15. Tight — published start 1987-08-28
  16. Loose — published start 1990-05-25
  17. Tight — published start 1990-08-10
  18. Loose — published start 1991-03-08
  19. Tight — published start 1998-10-09
  20. Loose — published start 1998-10-30
  21. Tight — published start 2000-05-19
  22. Loose — published start 2000-06-30
  23. Tight — published start 2007-08-17
  24. Loose — published start 2007-10-12
  25. Tight — published start 2007-10-26
  26. Loose — published start 2009-11-20
  27. Tight — published start 2020-03-13
  28. Loose — published start 2020-05-08

We read the Chicago Fed’s NFCI regimes, on the publisher’s own tighter/looser sign convention.· Chicago Fed / FRED· Last published boundary 2020-05-08· Current phase — Tight· Recession shading is drawn from 1973-11, the first NBER contraction drawn on this lane; NBER publishes contractions from 1854-12, earlier than the shading begins.

About this framework
Who proposed it
We take this lane from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which publishes the National Financial Conditions Index — the NFCI.
What it claims
The NFCI is a weekly gauge of how tight or loose US financial conditions are. It folds many measures from the money, debt and equity markets and from both traditional and shadow banking into one index, built so that a reading above zero means conditions are tighter than their own long-run average and a reading below zero means looser.
What it can’t tell you
It measures the tightness or looseness of financial conditions — not asset prices, not returns, and not a market call; a tight reading is not a cue to sell. It describes where conditions sit today against their own history, and nothing more. The series itself only begins in 1971, so there is no earlier reading for us to show you.
Read the research
Eras — 8 published · Federal Reserve History

Positioned on the Generational (Fourth Turning) lane's own axis, which starts 1435 — the only axis on this page whose span contains every published era start, 1791–2007. These eras are Federal Reserve History's separately published chronology, not a property of that framework.

Published era starts 1791–2007 · Federal Reserve History

  1. 1. Before the Fed — 1791–1913 · Federal Reserve History
  2. 2. Fed's Formative Years — 1913–1929 · Federal Reserve History
  3. 3. Great Depression — 1929–1941 · Federal Reserve History
  4. 4. WWII and After — 1941–1951 · Federal Reserve History
  5. 5. After the Accord — 1951–1965 · Federal Reserve History
  6. 6. Great Inflation — 1965–1982 · Federal Reserve History
  7. 7. Great Moderation — 1982–2007 · Federal Reserve History
  8. 8. Great Recession and After — 2007 onward · Federal Reserve History

Sources and method

Every boundary drawn above is transcribed from one of the publications listed below, and every band carries its own citation naming the row it was read from. No lane shows a current phase: the group publishes its reading of each lane quarterly and has not published one yet.

A lane draws what this project transcribed, which is not always the whole of what its publisher published. Where a source’s own record begins earlier than the transcription, that lane says so on its own line and states how many published boundaries fall outside the drawn window.

Recession shading is an independent layer taken from the NBER business cycle chronology. It is not corroboration of any lane, and it is never re-derived from the lanes at render time.

The generational lane transcribes the turnings Strauss and Howe date in The Anglo-American Saeculum. That chronology is Anglo-American rather than American: its earliest turnings are English history.

The market and liquidity lane marks where the Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index crosses zero, on the publisher’s own tighter and looser sign convention. Those crossings are a published rule applied to a published weekly series. The Chicago Fed publishes the index and the convention; it does not date these crossings and does not call any of them a change of regime, and several of them sit close enough to zero that a small revision would move the date.

This page states what each publication says and when it said it. It does not rank the frameworks against one another, does not combine them into a single reading, and asserts no transition date beyond the range its source published.

Each source below carries its full citation and its publisher’s own reuse terms, reproduced word for word and never abridged. One of them is a copyrighted trade work whose terms grant no reuse at all; it appears here as a minimal factual extract with full attribution, which is the only basis on which this site reproduces it.

  1. Strauss & Howe (1997)

    Source
    The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy - What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny
    Author
    William Strauss, Neil Howe
    Publisher
    Broadway Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
    Year
    1997
    Location
    https://lccn.loc.gov/96031309
    Accessed
    2026-08-10
    Locator
    Carried per boundary. 25 transcribed entries on this page cite this source, each naming its own published row.
    Terms of use
    Copyrighted trade work, all rights reserved, (c) 1997 William Strauss and Neil Howe. No reuse licence is published; the work carries only an "All rights reserved" notice. Reproduced here: dated turning boundaries only, as a minimal factual extract attributed to the named work. No chart, table, generational profile or passage is reproduced. Research-only, non-commercial posture - full attribution given, no permission sought.

  2. NBER

    Source
    US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions
    Author
    National Bureau of Economic Research, Business Cycle Dating Committee
    Publisher
    National Bureau of Economic Research
    Year
    2023
    Location
    https://www.nber.org/research/data/us-business-cycle-expansions-and-contractions
    Accessed
    2026-08-10
    Locator
    Carried per boundary. 72 transcribed entries on this page cite this source, each naming its own published row.
    Terms of use
    Permission to copy is granted, provided attribution of source is given.

  3. Chicago Fed / FRED

    Source
    Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Index (NFCI)
    Author
    Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
    Publisher
    Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED), series produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
    Year
    2026
    Location
    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NFCI
    Accessed
    2026-08-10
    Locator
    Carried per boundary. 28 transcribed entries on this page cite this source, each naming its own published row.
    Terms of use
    Copyrighted: Citation Required

  4. Federal Reserve History

    Source
    Federal Reserve History: Time Periods
    Author
    Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
    Publisher
    Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
    Year
    2026
    Location
    https://www.federalreservehistory.org/time-period/federal-reserve-history
    Accessed
    2026-08-12
    Locator
    Carried per boundary. 8 transcribed entries on this page cite this source, each naming its own published row.
    Terms of use
    Terms of Use restrict reproduction of this Website's content; no reuse licence is published. Reproduced here: published era names and start years only, as a minimal factual extract attributed to the named site, credited by its full published name "Federal Reserve History" as its Terms of Use require. No essay, chart, image or author prose is reproduced. Research-only, non-commercial posture - full attribution given, no permission sought.

Cycle framework readings are analytical opinions, not investment advice. Historical boundaries are transcribed from the publications cited below.

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