Friday, September 8, 2023

The Art of Forecasting Wheat Prices Using Harmonic Cycles | L.H. Weston

Numerous attempts have been made during the past century to find a fairly reliable method for determining, long in advance, the probable price of wheat and grain in general [...] We have a wheat record that runs back, upon unimpeachable authority, for several hundred years, the one given in this booklet beginning in the year 1270 and running up to present time, with years as the unit of time, and it would indeed be strange if, with such a record, we could not pick out the useful cycles in it, providing any such cycles really do exist [...] That there are recurring cycles of movement in nearly all, if not, indeed, absolutely all natural phenomena, there is now no longer any reasonable doubt. No scholar of the day, no scientist, no investigator of these times, would for a moment argue against this well established fact.
 

[...] In the following pages I give the recorded mean price of wheat for each year in England from the year 1270 to 1909, in both a table and a diagram. Also, in a diagram, the monthly mean price of wheat at Chicago and Cincinnati from 1844 to present date. Special charts are also given to illustrate the explanations regarding the method of forecasting by means of cycles. By means of these tables and charts I show in this work how a forecast of the wheat market can be made up for over 40 years. In fact, I chart the forecast in advance over 10 years, for the benefit of readers and students. It is done just as proposed above, namely, by first proving that the harmonic cycles really do exist in the records, and then carrying them on into future years. The calendar year is used as the unit of time (or the calendar month) and therefore the forecasting, as taught, is necessarily of the long swing movement. 
 
 
 
[...] On page 27 is given the table of composite and harmonic values in the 49-year cycle. That composite is, as before stated, the result of eleven cycles added together, while the harmonic values are merely the smoothed curve of this same composite, and both are charted together on page 26. 

 
[...] This result is given in the Composite Chart of the 49-year cycle and it is the one used as the basis of all forecasting. If we examine the composite chart with some attention we will find that there are just about eight places where tops come out and likewise there are eight bottoms. Eight into 49 goes 6.125 times, so it seems very much as though the famous 7-year cycle of the ancient Jews was in reality about six and one-eighth years instead of 7. It is the eighth harmonic that gives the best results in the 49-year cycle, instead of the seventh.