Portfolio Positioning Across Market Cycles

The biggest portfolio decisions — not individual stock picks — determine the majority of your returns and losses across a full market cycle.

Why This Matters

Understanding market cycles is intellectually satisfying but practically useless unless it translates into specific portfolio action. This lesson is the bridge — a framework for adjusting asset allocation, sector exposure, and defensive positioning as the cycle progresses through its four phases. The goal is not to predict the cycle precisely, but to avoid being positioned aggressively at peaks and defensively at troughs.