Martin A. Armstrong

The theory is based on a list of historical financial panics (26 in 224 years, between 1683 and 1907), producing a frequency of roughly 8.6 years.

Armstrong concluded that a wave of 8.6 years moved through larger waves building in intensity amounting to six waves of 8.6 years constructing a major long wave of 51.6 years.

Also key are quarter-cycles of 2.15 years.

Armstrong kept his cycle secret and The New Yorker commented that Armstrong suggested that his models were rooted in certain fundamentals and complex computer calculations, rather than in a simple mystical number.

His economic philosophy was influenced by his father, a lawyer whose grandfather had lost a fortune in the 1929 stock market crash.

After finishing high school, Armstrong briefly attended RCA Institutes (now TCI College of Technology) in New York City and audited courses at Princeton University but did not obtain a college degree.

Armstrong's Economic Confidence Model is an economic cycle theory that proposes that economic waves occur every 8.6 years, or 3141 days, which is approximately.

At the end of each cycle is a crisis after which the economic climate improves until the next 8.6 year crisis point.

Martin Arthur Armstrong (born November 1, 1949) is an American self-taught economic forecaster and convicted felon who spent 11 years in jail for cheating investors out of $700 million and hiding $15 million in assets from regulators.

At age thirteen, Armstrong began working at a coin and stamp dealership in Pennsauken, New Jersey.

At age fifteen he bought a bag of rare Canadian pennies that for a brief period would have made him a millionaire, had he sold them before they crashed in value.

After becoming the manager of his employer's store at the age of twenty-one, he and a partner opened a store for coin and stamp collectors.

Armstrong progressed from investments in gold coins to following commodity prices for precious metals.

In 1973, he began publishing commodities market predictions as a hobby.

Armstrong's theory was initially applied in 1977, when he used it to successfully predict an upturn in the price of commodities, according to The New Yorker.

As his coin and stamp business declined, Armstrong spent more time on his commodities ventures, launching a paid newsletter in 1983.

Armstrong has since traded under various business names, including Princeton Economics International, Princeton Economic Consultants, Inc., Economic Consultants of Princeton, Inc., and Armstrong Report, Inc.

After viewing The Toast of New York in high school, Armstrong came to believe that assets do not appreciate linearly over time and that, historically, some manner of economic panic occurs every 8.6 years.

In 1985 Armstrong was found to have violated Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulations by failing to register as a commodity trading advisor, failing to deliver required disclosure documents to clients, and failing to maintain proper records.

In 1987 one of Armstrong's trading entities, Economic Consultants of Princeton Inc., was charged with failing to disclose a commission sharing agreement, and another of his entities, Princeton Economic Consultants Inc, was charged with misrepresenting hypothetical performance results and omitting a required disclaimer in advertisements.

The penalties levied banned Armstrong and his companies from trading for twelve months, revoked their registrations, imposed cease-and-desist orders, and levied civil penalties totalling fifty thousand dollars.

On June 27, 1998, Armstrong was quoted in the Financial Times, predicting that the Russian financial troubles would prove to be more damaging to Europe than the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Other commentators in the same article argued that only countries with strong ties to Russia - e.g. Germany and smaller eastern European countries - would be severely affected.

This turned out to be closer to the truth, with the British FTSE100 and French CAC 40 having fully recovered by December, and the German DAX reaching pre-crisis levels by November the next year.

Armstrong frequently claims that in the article he predicted the economic collapse itself, claiming that this prediction drew the attention of the CIA.

However, the possibility of a collapse was already well understood weeks earlier.

Justin Fox wrote in Time that Armstrong's model "made several eerily on-the-mark calls using a formula based on the mathematical constant pi."

In 1999, Japanese fraud investigators accused Armstrong of collecting money from Japanese investors, improperly commingling these funds with funds from other investors, and using the fresh money to cover losses he had incurred while trading.

United States prosecutors called it a three-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Allegedly assisting Armstrong in his scheme was the Republic New York Corporation, which produced false account statements to reassure Armstrong's investors.

Armstrong was indicted in 1999 and ordered by Judge Richard Owen to turn over fifteen million dollars in gold bars and antiquities bought with the fund's money; the list included bronze helmets and a bust of Julius Caesar.

Armstrong produced some of the items but claimed the others were not in his possession; this led to several contempt of court charges brought by the SEC and the CFTC, for which he served seven years in jail until he reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors.

Under the terms of the agreement, Armstrong admitted to deceiving corporate investors and improperly commingling client funds—actions that according to prosecutors resulted in commodities losses of more than seven hundred million dollars—and was sentenced to five years in prison.

In 2001, the bank agreed to pay US$606 million as restitution for its part in the scandal.

Barron's noted the model called for a change in sentiment in June 2011.

He was released from federal custody on 2 September 2011 after serving a total of eleven years behind bars.

According to an editorial in The Guardian, Armstrong incorrectly predicted that a sovereign debt crisis, or "Big Bang" as he called it, would begin on 1 October 2015.

The case against Armstrong was finally closed in 2017, with the distribution of about $80 million to claim holders by the receiver, according to court filings.

Armstrong appealed the refusal of the receiver to transport his remaining possessions from storage lockers in New York and Pennsylvania to him in Florida, but the appeal failed in 2019.

Concerning his felony conviction, Armstrong is "unrepentant", according to Bloomberg.