The Olympics, the election and shmita all land in 2028

The Liquidity Map · Crypto report

The Olympics, the election and shmita all land in 2028

Olympics, recession, bear market, presidential election.

Since 1958, the same sequence has closed out five major stock market cycles.

The sixth cycle end would land in 2028, and until then crypto has the most ground to make up.

October 5th, 2026 · 7 min read

Key takeaways

Since 1958, five major stock market cycles have ended with a US recession? and a stock market drop, around Olympic and presidential election years.
The Olympics and the election always fall in the same year. The real signal is the recession and the stock market drop, which clustered around those years every time.
Before each cycle end, the S&P? rose between 56% and 427%. The current cycle has delivered +252% so far.
In 2028, the Olympics (July), the shmita year (September 21st) and the US election (November 7th) fall within the same four months.
Bitcoin is 32% below its all-time high? and Ethereum 45%, while the S&P and the Nasdaq are close to their highs. Crypto has the most ground to make up.
The 4-year cycle is measured low to low. I'm watching for weakness in November-January, then new highs in 2027 and a top before September 2028.
A big drop in 2028 still gets bought, like in 2020. After September 2028, I won't buy dips the same way, and I expect the biggest drops in 2029.

Someone sent me a short list on X: a few years and four words.

Olympics, recession, bear market?, presidential election.

According to the list, all four came together at the end of every major stock market cycle since 1958.

I checked it year by year.

For crypto, the conclusion matters more than it seems: if the pattern holds, the liquidity? season has until 2028.

Definition

Recession (NBER)

A broad decline in economic activity, usually lasting several months. In the US, the official start and end of a recession are set by the NBER's committee of economists, usually a few months after the fact. Not every recession comes with a stock market bear market, and not every bear market comes with a recession.

The sequence

Five cycle endings, one recipe

The list has six rows: 1958-1960, 1975-1980, 1991-2000, 2003-2008, 2009-2020 and 2021-2028.

According to the list, the same four things show up at the end of each.

I checked the recessions against the official NBER data and measured the S&P drops on wicks?.

Four of the five cycle endings had both a recession and a bear market. The fifth, 1960, had only the recession.

In 1960, the S&P fell just 14%.

The bear markets came before and after: -21.5% in 1957 and -29.3% in 1962.

In fairness, there's one more thing to say.

The Summer Olympics and the US presidential election always fall in the same year, once every four years.

They're essentially the same clock.

What matters is something else: the recession and the stock market drop clustered around those years every time.

Cycle end	Recession (NBER)	S&P drop	Olympics
1960	Apr 1960 - Feb 1961	-14.0%	Rome
1980	Jan - Jul 1980	-21.6%	Moscow
2000-2002	Mar - Nov 2001	-50.5%	Sydney
2007-2009	Dec 2007 - Jun 2009	-57.7%	Beijing
2020	Feb - Apr 2020	-35.4%	Tokyo*
2028	?	?	Los Angeles

The S&P drop is measured on wicks, peak to low, around each cycle end. Before 1962 only closing prices exist. Every cycle end also had a US presidential election. *The Tokyo Olympics were held in 2021.

5 of 5Cycle endings since 1958 that had a US recession, in the Olympic year or right after.

What happened before each ending is even more interesting.

Liquidity

Before every ending, the best part

I measured how far the S&P rose from the low that opened each cycle to the peak before its end.

The smallest gain was +56%, in the short 1957-1959 cycle.

The biggest, over +400%, came in 1990-2000 and 2009-2020.

The liquidity season didn't end on a calendar date. It ended only when the recession and the stock market drop arrived.

The current cycle started from the March 2020 low, $2,192.

Since then, the S&P has climbed 252%, to $7,723.

If the end comes around 2028, as the pattern suggests, there are almost two years of liquidity left.

Bitcoin has lived through only one cycle end, in 2020.

It lost 63% in a month, from $10,500 to $3,850, then rose almost 17-fold by April 2021.

Cycle	Starting low	Peak before the end	Gain
1957-1959	$39	$61	+56%
1974-1980	$61	$120	+97%
1990-2000	$295	$1,553	+427%
2002-2007	$769	$1,576	+105%
2009-2020	$667	$3,394	+409%
2020-now	$2,192	$7,723 (Oct 2)	+252%

S&P 500, from the low that opened each cycle to the peak before its end. The last row is the current cycle, through the October 2nd close.

+252%How far the S&P has climbed from the March 2020 low that opened the current cycle.

The sixth ending already has a date on the calendar.

2028

Three clocks, the same four months

In 2028, the Los Angeles Olympics run from July 14th to July 30th.

On September 21st, the shmita year begins.

On November 7th, the US holds its presidential election.

Yesterday I showed what we expect for 2027 and 2028: they are years 5 and 6 of the shmita cycle, historically the best years of the cycle.

Now I've overlaid the cycle endings on the same cycle.

Four of the five cycle endings fell in the shmita window, meaning the shmita year or the year after.

In 1959, the S&P peaked in the shmita year, and the recession began in 1960, the year after.

In 1980, the recession and the 21.6% drop came in the shmita year itself.

In the 2001 and 2008 endings, the recession also began in the shmita year.

The exception is 2020: the drop came in year 5, before the shmita year, which only began in September 2021.

And it got bought: the S&P made a new high in August 2020.

The bear market came later, in 2022, right in the shmita year: -27.5%, with no recession.

That's the parallel I care about for 2028.

If year 6 brings a bigger drop than we expect, it still gets bought, like in 2020.

Once year 6 ends, in September 2028, dips won't get bought the same way.

I'm not saying the recession will arrive exactly in the fall of 2028.

I'm saying every clock I follow points to the same window.

4 of 5Cycle endings that fell in the shmita window. The exception is 2020.

The S&P 500 since 1955, on a log scale. Gray bands are US recessions, red dots are the lows at the end of each cycle, and the gold band is July-November 2028.

Until then, the question is where there's the most room to grow.

Crypto

Crypto has the most ground to make up

The S&P and the Nasdaq are less than 2% below their all-time highs.

Gold is 25% below its January peak.

Bitcoin is 32% below its $126,198 high, and Ethereum 45% below its August 2025 peak.

We've seen this before, in 2023-2024. After the 2022 bear market, crypto was the furthest from its highs, and it recovered the fastest.

From the 2022 lows to March 2024, Bitcoin rose 373% and Ethereum 357%.

Over the same stretch, the Nasdaq rose 77%, the S&P 51% and gold 38%.

That's why I think crypto has the biggest potential of any market between now and 2028.

-45%How far Ethereum is below its all-time high, the widest gap among the markets I follow.

How far each market is below its all-time high, as of October 4th, 2026. Crypto is furthest away.

The road there has a clock of its own.

The clock

The 4-year cycle is measured low to low

On September 28th I flagged three things to watch.

September closed at $83,554, above $83,000. That was the ideal scenario.

The $90-93k level hasn't been reached yet. October's high so far is $87,146.

The ETH/BTC ratio is at 0.0316, still below 0.032.

Cycle tops came in different months. Cycle lows always came between November and January.

January 2015, December 2018, November 2022.

That's why I'm watching for a stretch of weakness in November-January.

If it comes, I expect a higher low?, around the $75,000 zone, for example, not a break of the July low.

Near $60,000 I was buying, and I explained why in a video back in June.

Then, in 2027, new all-time highs, earlier than the halving? would suggest.

I expect the cycle top before September 2028, before the shmita year begins.

If the Pi Cycle? triggers again, we're talking about more than $350,000. That's a scenario, not a target.

I see 2029 as a bear market year.

That's when I expect the biggest drops, possibly into early 2030.

Nov-JanThe months in which Bitcoin made its cycle lows in 2015, 2018 and 2022.

That shifts my positioning a little.

How we're positioned

September closed above $83,000, so the September 28th plan still stands.

On the way to $90-93k and $102-108k, we keep taking small profits.

If the November-January weakness comes, we use it to add. The more it drops, the more we add.

I'm more exposed to Ethereum and the strong altcoins? than I was between 2022 and 2025.

If a big drop comes in 2028, before the shmita year, I'll still buy it. After September 2028, I won't buy dips the same way.

I'm planning my big round of selling before the fall of 2028, not in 2029.

We don't work in extremes: we don't sell everything and we don't leave the market.

Conclusions

Five cycle endings since 1958 followed the same recipe: a recession and a stock market drop.

The next one points to the second half of 2028.

Until then, liquidity has time to work.

And crypto is the market with the most ground to make up.

What to watch this week

Does Bitcoin reach the $90-93k level in October?
If weakness comes in November-January, does Bitcoin stay above the July low of $57,748?
Does the ETH/BTC ratio climb above 0.032?

The Olympics, the election and shmita all land in 2028

Keep reading

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80 years of shmita, by the numbers

The weak window is over. Is the best quarter next?