The Shmita year: why I watch a 7-year cycle, not just a 4-year one

The Liquidity Map · Framework

The Shmita year: why I watch a 7-year cycle, not just a 4-year one

Plenty of people tie Shmita to collapses. I use it the other way round. The Shmita year is not the crash, it is where the bottom printed. And if the next window is 2028 - 2029, that tells me something about when the top arrives, not just about when the fear does.

June 23, 2026 · 12 min read

Key takeaways

Shmita is the sabbatical year in the Hebrew calendar, once every 7 years. I don't read it as a crash prophecy. I read it as the window where the bottom usually printed.
On the S&P 500, the big lows landed next to the Shmita window: 2002, 2009 and 2022. In 2015 equities were weak, but Bitcoin confirmed the pattern.
The pattern has two halves: markets rally into the start of the Shmita window, stall right before it, then bottom inside it.
Bitcoin printed its cycle bottom in November 2022, around $15.8k, right on the edge of the 2021 - 2022 Shmita window.
The next window is 2028 - 2029. Laid over the 2028 halving, it points me toward an early top, not a late one. A left-translated cycle.
It is not a mechanism, it is a marker. Four data points, windows a full year wide. I use it as a lens on top of the rest of my analysis, never instead of it.

I am going to tell you something I rarely say on YouTube, but have been repeating on Twitter for years.

There is a cycle people either ignore or get completely backwards: Shmita, the sabbatical year in the Hebrew calendar, once every 7 years.

The popular version, sold by Jonathan Cahn in a 2014 book, says the Shmita year brings the collapse. In 2015 it called for a global crash that never came.

I read it the other way round. For me the Shmita year is not the crash. It is the window where the bottom has usually already settled. Let me show you, with data, and where it breaks.

Definition

Shmita (the sabbatical year)

In Hebrew tradition, every seventh year the land rests, the fields are left uncultivated and debts are forgiven. Counted from Rosh Hashanah to Rosh Hashanah, the last windows were 2000 - 2001, 2007 - 2008, 2014 - 2015 and 2021 - 2022. In markets it is not a law, it is an overlap that plenty of people have noticed. A time marker, not a cause.

The core idea

Shmita is not the crash. It is where the crash ends.

Let me be clear from the start. I am not in the camp that shouts disaster at every Shmita year.

Look at what actually happened. The 2000 - 2001 window caught the dot-com bubble bursting and September 11. The 2007 - 2008 window caught the financial crisis, with Lehman going down in September 2008, right as it closed.

In both, the panic came inside the window. And the bottom settled straight after: October 2002 and March 2009. Each time, once the window closed, the market stopped making new lows.

Last two SHMITA years: '15 & '22. After SHMITA, no new lows.

That is what I wrote on August 26, 2023, a year before the market confirmed it. In the same post I also said that rates had entered a new cycle and that we are in a secular bull until 2032.

On the S&P chart since 1999 you can see the pattern with the naked eye. Three big lows, 2002, 2009 and 2022, all glued to a Shmita window.

I am not saying the window causes the bottom. I am saying that, empirically, that is where it settled three times out of the last four.

3 out of 4How many times the big S&P low landed next to the Shmita window across the last four cycles.

S&P 500 since 1999, log scale. The lows of 2002, 2009 and 2022 landed inside or right after the Shmita window. 2015 is the exception.

Hold on to that point: for me the window marks the bottom, not the top. Now let's move to my own turf, Bitcoin.

Bitcoin

The 2022 bottom landed right on the edge

On Bitcoin the pattern is cleaner, because we only have one major cycle to test in the modern Shmita era.

The top came in November 2021, close to $69k. Then the collapse: Terra Luna in May 2022, the 3AC fund shortly after, and finally FTX in November.

The bottom came in November 2022 too, around $15.8k. A drop of nearly 78% from the top, right as the 2021 - 2022 Shmita window closed.

I don't think SPX should close weekly under 3400$ as every SHMITA year marks the bottom going further.

I wrote that in January 2024. Since then the market has not made new lows below that bottom. Not the S&P. Not Bitcoin.

Be fair with me here. In that same thread I also put out price levels that turned out too cautious. I saw Bitcoin capped under $100k. It went straight through.

The timing of the bottom held. The exact level did not. And that is the whole point: Shmita gives me roughly WHEN the bottom settles, not HOW HIGH it climbs afterwards. I leave the magnitude to liquidity and to the chart.

-78%Bitcoin's drop from the 2021 top to the November 2022 bottom, at the edge of the Shmita window.

Bitcoin, log scale. The November 2022 bottom landed as the Shmita window closed. The next window, hatched, is 2028 - 2029.

If the window gave me the last bottom, the next one tells me where to look for the following one. And that is where it gets interesting.

The full pattern

Markets run into Shmita, then they stall

There is another half to the pattern, and few people see it.

Markets don't just bottom inside the Shmita window. They rally hard into the start of it, then stall right before.

The 2021 - 2022 Shmita year opened in September 2021. Look at what Bitcoin did just before.

A rally into the window, a stall right before it, then the bottom inside it. That is the rhythm.

In April 2021, rallies everywhere, Bitcoin at $63k. Then the stall: a 53% crash into July.

The Shmita window opened in September 2021. The real bottom only came in November 2022, inside it.

And this is where 2015 fits in, the year everybody calls the exception. On equities it was weak, true. But Bitcoin had run over 50,000% into 2014, then collapsed and bottomed inside that window. On Bitcoin, the pattern never broke.

-53%Bitcoin's drop from April to July 2021, the stall before the Shmita window opened.

Bitcoin 2020 - 2023. Top in April 2021, a stall of -53%, then the bottom inside the Shmita window that opened in September 2021.

So the pattern has two halves: a rally into Shmita, then a bottom inside it. All the more reason to attack it.

Honesty

Where the pattern breaks down

I have no intention of selling you a perfect pattern. Let me attack it myself, before you do.

There are four cycles. Four. The windows are wide, a full year each. A bottom somewhere inside a given year is not a hard bar to clear.

And 2015, the year everybody hands you as the exception? On the S&P it was weak, true, just a correction in August. But on Bitcoin the window caught the collapse that followed the rally exactly. Not a clean miss there either.

Four cycles don't make a law. They make a marker you check against everything else.

There is one more detail few people account for. The exact windows close in 2001 and 2008, but the equity lows came in 2002 and 2009. The window catches the crisis, the bottom settles on the edge.

And there is no mechanism here. There is no reason an ancient calendar should move the market. It is a coincidence that repeated, not a cause. That is why I take it as a marker, and not as a prophecy.

The doom version, Cahn's, fell over exactly this: it promised catastrophe in September 2015 and nothing came. The chart below shows the weak part, on equities: in 2015, no big decline.

n = 4Only four cycles to test. Too few for a law, enough for a marker.

Every red line is a decline from the peak to the bottom on the S&P. 2002, 2009 and 2022 land next to a Shmita boundary. In 2015, on equities, no big decline.

So it is not a prophecy. It is a lens with a decent record and some clear limits. With that in mind, here is what I see for this cycle.

What comes next

Why 2028 points me to an early top

Bitcoin has its own mechanical cycle, the halving, once every four years. Shmita comes every seven.

On September 5, 2025 I put it in writing: the next Shmita year is 2028 - 2029, the last one was 2021 - 2022.

In 2028 the two clocks overlap. The 2028 halving falls over the 2028 - 2029 Shmita window.

We bottom earlier because we need to top earlier in 2028. A left translated cycle, because 2029 is a SHMITA year.

Now lay the other half of the pattern on top. If markets run into the start of the window, then I expect aggressive rallies through 2027 and into 2028, toward the autumn of 2028.

Then the stall, right before. And the bottom inside the window. That means a left-translated cycle, with the top in the first half of 2028, not at the end of it.

It is a working hypothesis, not a promise. I check it against every new liquidity print, against every move in rates. But the marker, 2028 - 2029, stays fixed.

2028 - 2029The next Shmita window, overlapping the halving. That is where I build my timing from.

The halving, the mechanical 4-year cycle, over the Shmita windows, the narrative 7-year cycle. In 2028 they overlap.

That is the map I work with. Not a dogma, a timing marker I hold up against liquidity and against the chart.

Conclusions

Shmita doesn't tell me how much, or on what day. It tells me roughly when the cycle resets, and three times out of the last four it landed.

That is it. A lens over my analysis, not a replacement for it. It marked the bottom in 2022. For 2028 - 2029 it makes me expect the top earlier than the crowd does.

Summary

For me, the Shmita year is where the cycle bottom settles, not the crash. On the S&P it held in 2002, 2009 and 2022. In 2015, it did not.
Bitcoin confirmed it in November 2022, at $15.8k.
The next window, 2028 - 2029, falls over the halving. That is why I expect an early top. A marker, not a prophecy.

The Shmita year: why I watch a 7-year cycle, not just a 4-year one

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