Study of Patterns

The 120-year mirror.

A rolling comparison of two market windows, the correlation between them, and exactly what happened in the historical year that followed. Different technology, different headlines, familiar human mechanics.

Market lens
120-year study— · —

Today

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AI, ETFs and concentrated leadership

120 years

Exactly 120 years ago

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Railroads, electricity and the road to 1907

01

Markets · then vs now

The same market animal.

A century apart, both markets were near highs, calm on the surface, and leaning on a powerful new technology story.

02

Geopolitics & science

Different tools, familiar tensions.

A general-purpose technology, a contested chokepoint, and a political order under strain. The nouns change; the grammar repeats.

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2026

Field note

Now

AI, security and the new industrial race

The general-purpose technology is AI. The contested chokepoint is compute, energy and the supply chain that makes both possible.

  • AI infrastructure and data-centre capex become strategic assets.
  • US–China technology competition redraws trade and alliance maps.
  • European security and energy transition compete for fiscal space.
  • A concentrated market leadership group becomes a political actor.

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1906

Field note

Then

Earthquake, dreadnoughts and electricity

The general-purpose technology was electricity. The contested chokepoint was rail, coal and the coaling stations that connected empires.

  • The San Francisco earthquake (April 1906) exposes infrastructure fragility.
  • HMS Dreadnought resets the naval arms race in 1906.
  • The Anglo-Russian Entente rearranges the great-power map.
  • Rapid industrialisation and trust consolidation set up the Panic of 1907.
03

Repeatability index

Structural echo

120years

The century repeats in structure: a new technology, a credit cycle, and a contest for power.

Reading echo

History does not repeat. It rhymes.

Human emotion, debt and technological booms are the constants. The 1906 boom in rails and electricity, the 2008 credit shock and the 2026 boom in AI and compute are different expressions of the same sequence: a general-purpose technology attracts capital, leverage amplifies the build-out, and the bill arrives when the story stops compounding.

Emotion

Fear and greed do not update with the technology.

Debt

Every boom finds a new way to borrow against the future.

Technology

A general-purpose tool attracts capital, then overcapacity.

Power

Geopolitical competition follows the money and the chokepoint.

The Repeatability Index is an editorial analogy, not a statistical forecast. A high price correlation is a descriptive echo, not a guarantee of the next move.

Study of Patterns · S&P 500 lens · data from the StrikeHike macro archive
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