FSC Forecasts Silver Low in February

The prestigious Foundation for the Study of Cycles was founded in 1941 by Harvard economist, Edward R. Dewey, who was Chief Economist for President Herbert Hoover. Hoover assigned Dewey the taks of determining the causes of the US depression. The results of that inquiry was the formation of the Foundation, which brought together individuals from all fields who discovered the importance of cycles in economic data. The Foundation was the first organization to study cycles scientifically and has produced some very accurate cycles forecasts since then.

A number of notable individuals have been involved with the foundation over the years, including:

Copley Amory, Chairman of the Board
Charles Greely Abbot, Smithsonian Institute
Harold Elmer Anthony, American Museum of Natural History
George Baekeland, The Bakelite Corporation
Honorable Charles G. Dunes, Chairman of the Board, City National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago
Honorable W. Cameron Forbes, Board of Trustees, Carnegie Institute
and Life Member of the Corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Daniel Trembly McDougal, Former Director, Dept. of Botanical Research, Carnegie Institute
Harlow Shapley, Director of the Observatory, Harvard University
Julian Sorrell Huxley, Director General of the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations
Wesley Clair Mitchell, Founder of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Since its origins the Foundation has developed a variety of methods for predicting cycles, the most recent development being its highly accurate “Zarathustra” project. The Foundation recently released a forecast of the silver market, made five years ago, which has been accurately tracing out silver price changes and calls for a further delcine in silver prices until mid-February:

You can see the match-up between predictions and the recent volatility in silver prices from this enlarged chart which suggests a coming low around mid-February:

Dewey admitted that “The activities of the Foundation are a compromise between the desires of most of our members… and our own desires.” He ran a survey at that time to find out which element of cycles research most interested the Foundation’s readership. It turned out to by 874 of the 1,108 (79%) that responded were primarily interested in stock market and other business and finance cycles. A recent survey conducted in 2010 by the Foundation indicated the same interests.