The Secret Cycle (Sorry, the full article is subscriber-only) is a New Yorker article about a market analyst named Martin Armstrong who built his theories on the concept of cycles, specifically around the number π. The gist is that every 8.6 years (some connection to π) there is a major market event. These events are not always noticeable when they happen, but after the fact it became clear that something did occur.

Armstrong, in his essay “Understanding the Real Economy,” said “I have spent a lot of time trying to comprehend how such a model can even work on a specific level to a precise day, years and decades in advance. The only explanation is the subject matter is so intensely complex that there is indeed a hidden order within what would appear to be random chaos.”

…[Analyst Bill Erman] noted that termites build their perfect mounds, and bees their perfect hives, and spiders their perfect webs, all around the world, without, presumably, being conscious of why or what they are doing. “Mankind is unconsciously constructing a geometrically perfect market,” Erman said. We can’t help building our own beehives in the air. The charts are our termite mounds.

This is a trippy view on determinism.