Why the Fourth Turning Won’t Resolve Until Super Cycle Wave III Peaks and Wave IV Finds Bottom
As we close out 2025 with the Dow Jones Industrial Average within reach of the psychological 50,000 level and despite all the well-deserved doom and gloom, the question on every die-hard bullish investor’s mind is not if the index will reach 100,000, but when — and what price will be paid along the way.
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| Some analysts interpret the structure as Grand Super Cycle Wave III (or V), depending on where they anchor the pre-industrial baseline. This distinction does not alter the implications: under both counts, the current advance is still part of an extended third wave, and third waves are not where secular crises resolve. They are where excess accumulates. |
The rarely seen proprietary chart above from 1693, which splices British Stock prices and the Clement Burgess Index to the Dow, presents a radical yet rigorous Elliott Wave-based perspective:
Before unpacking the connections, a brief orientation is helpful. Elliott Wave degree structures range from small, short-term patterns up to century-scale formations known as Cycle, Super Cycle, and Grand Super Cycle. These higher-order waves capture long economic booms, demographic arcs, technological eras, and broad civilizational moods. When an impulse of this magnitude is still unfolding, the society riding atop it rarely enters true crisis resolution until the wave completes.
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| Illustration showing three degrees of trend forming a complete market cycle. |
The entire advance of the Dow from the 1896 low is part of one single Super Cycle III wave. It is currently in the late stages of a smaller and ongoing 16-year Cycle Wave V within a larger GRAND SUPER CYCLE Wave III (or V, depending on the higher-degree interpretation). The implications are profound.
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The generational crisis known as the Fourth Turning — the societal upheaval Strauss and Howe originally predicted would end by 2026 — will not find resolution until Super Cycle Wave III tops and its corresponding Wave IV bottoms, likely sometime between 2030 and 2036.
BULLISH NOTE: As captioned beneath the chart above, it is plausible that strong inflationary winds can extend the current 16-year Cycle Wave V to 2030-2032, inverting our suspicion for a severe decline into this period. If this occurs, Super Cycle III will have thrown over the upper trend channel and be marked accordingly.
Because Super Cycle III has not yet peaked, the conditions required for a true Fourth Turning catharsis have not yet formed. Instead of concluding, the crisis continues to compound—geopolitical fractures, monetary instability, demographic strain—held in suspension by a still-advancing secular market wave. The tension builds, but the break has not arrived.
Until Super Cycle III peaks, perhaps in 2026, when it surpasses the 5X threshold of 50K after passing its last major 10X milestone at 10K in 1999, the path remains upward with violent trepidation.
The Grand Channel: A 330-Year Perspective
When British stock data from 1693 is spliced with the Dow Jones Industrial Average beginning in 1896, a remarkable parallel channel emerges:
The lower trendline connects the Clement Burgess 1857 low, the 1896 low, and the 1932 low.
The upper trendline is a parallel copy drawn from the 1720 South Sea Bubble peak, which aligns rather nicely with the current print highs in the Dow for 2025-2026. A throw-over above the upper trend channel is always possible.
This channel has contained the entire modern equity advance for over three centuries. The current price action is pressing hard against the upper boundary — a classic termination signal in Elliott Wave analysis.
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| The Grand Super Cycle uptrend channel from 1693 to the present. |
Super Cycle Degree: One Unfolding Impulse
The entire move from 1896 is labeled as a single Super Cycle advance:
Super Cycle I — 1857 low to 1881 high
Super Cycle II — 1929 crested with an expanded Cycle degree B wave peak high leading to the 1932 low (a sharp, primary five-wave down Cycle degree C-Wave correction terminating Super Cycle II).
Super Cycle III — 1932 low to present (extended, currently completing an extended Cycle V)
The post-1932 advance is not five complete Super Cycle waves. It is an extended third at Super Cycle degree still in progress, with the current rally from the 2009 low representing Cycle V within that larger III wave.
This labeling reconciles and defines the extraordinary duration and amplitude of the bull market without violating Elliott’s rules of proportionality and alternation.
Primary and Cycle Degree: The Final Leg
Within the ongoing Super Cycle III, the advance since 1932 subdivides into five clear Cycle waves with an additional subdivision at the primary degree between 1942 and 1999.:
Cycle I — 1932–1937
Cycle II — 1937–1942
Subdivided Primary Degree (within Cycle III):
Primary 1 — 1942-1946
Primary 2 — 1946-1949
Primary 3 — 1949-1965
Primary 4 — 1965-1982
Primary 5 — 1982-1999
Cycle III — 1942–1999
Cycle IV — 1999–2009
Cycle V — 2009-present (extended, currently in its terminal phase 2025-2032)
The post-2009 Cycle degree rally is the last of Cycle V (terminal to Super Cycle III from the 1932 low) — the structure that produced the extraordinary gains of the past sixteen years.
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FOUR DEGREES of TREND: Grand Super Cycle Waves are the largest Roman
Numerals noted in red, Super Cycle labels are in black, Cycle degree in
blue, and the smallest Primary waves are illustrated with standard red
numerals and letters. |
The Fourth Turning Resolution
The Strauss-Howe updated Fourth Turning framework predicts a period of intense societal crisis peaking in the late 2020s to early 2030s.
In Elliott Wave terms, this crisis corresponds to Super Cycle Wave IV — the deep, multi-year correction that must follow the completion of Super Cycle III.
This correction will likely take the form of a sharp zig-zag, or complex combination, lasting 3–8 years and retracing at least 38% of the entire advance from 1857. Such a decline would drive the Dow down toward the COVID lows of 2020, near the 18,000 level.
The resolution of this Fourth Turning — the rebirth phase — will not begin until Super Cycle Wave IV finds its bottom, projected to occur within the 2030–2036 timeframe.
Only then will Super Cycle Wave V begin — the final advance that carries the Dow to its next 10x target of 100,000.
Conclusion
The market is not yet in the final stages of a multi-century bull market ending in a grand cycle collapse, but rather approaching a Super Cycle Wave IV bear market event, which could still strip the Dow by 60-65% before the Super Cycle V wave bull resumes. The Dow is in the late stages of a multi-century third wave that still has one more explosive leg ahead to tag the Grand Super Cycle terminal.
The Fourth Turning crisis will be severe, but it will be a corrective event within a larger bullish structure — not the end of the Grand Super Cycle advance.
Although investors may wish to sidestep the pending decline, those who mistake Super Cycle Wave IV for the end of the bull market will miss the greatest opportunity of the coming generation.
The channel is speaking.
The waves are clear.
And after some much-needed, long overdue, and well-deserved pain, 100,000 on the Dow remains not just possible — but inevitable. Let’s hope so, anyway.
