Who this entry is for — Readers who see a price peak or trough occur before or after the symmetric turn expected from one wave and want to describe the displacement in Hickson's terminology.
Source boundary — The rule below was checked in David Hickson's 10 Core Concepts of Hurst Cycles, concept 10, pp. 12–14: it is a post-Hurst formalisation. Profit Magic (1970) is the primary source for the summation model and the book's method, but it is not used here to attribute this term or table to Hurst. The original Cycles Course was not consulted.
Definition
In plain terms — A visible turn in price need not occur at the same instant as the peak or trough of one theoretical component; the observed series combines more than that component.
Time translation is the temporal displacement of peaks and troughs in the resultant price from the turning points of the cycle component under consideration. In Hickson's formalisation, that displacement is interpreted together with the underlying trend, meaning the effect assigned to longer cycles over the interval. This is a relationship inside the model, not empirical causation established by the chart alone.
Conditional rule of the model
| Underlying trend | Price peak | Price trough |
|---|---|---|
| Positive | Tends to occur late | Tends to occur early |
| Negative | Tends to occur early | Tends to occur late |
Conceptual example — If the observed component is completing its upswing while the adopted phasing estimates the sum of longer cycles as positive, the price maximum may appear after the isolated component's peak. The observed maximum alone cannot identify either the component or the underlying trend.
The table states what the framework leads an analyst to expect when its conditions hold. It does not establish that every positive trend produces a late peak, or that every late peak proves a positive underlying trend.
Time translation and synchronicity
In plain terms — These are separate ideas: time translation describes a displaced turning point; synchronicity describes the tendency of troughs from different cycles to align where possible.
The Hurst tradition's operational preference for troughs rests mainly on the principle of synchronicity, not on time translation alone. Time translation helps describe why price peaks and troughs can appear asymmetric relative to an ideal cycle.
How to document it
To avoid circular reasoning, state:
- which cycle or wavelength was considered;
- how the underlying trend was estimated;
- which turning points were expected and which were observed;
- how many bars early or late the displacement measured;
- whether the analysis was made in real time or after the fact.
Limit — The table is a rule inside the Hickson/Hurst formalisation. It is not a universal empirical law, cannot be inverted into a causal test, and cannot date the next high or low by itself.
Summary card
- Object: an early or late price turning point.
- Factor inside the model: the sign of the underlying trend.
- Do not confuse with: synchronicity of troughs across cycles.
Sources
- J. M. Hurst, The Profit Magic of Stock Transaction Timing, Prentice-Hall, 1970 — primary source for the summation model and the book's method; cited to delimit the historical layer, not as the source of the time-translation term or table.
- David Hickson, 10 Core Concepts of Hurst Cycles, concept 10, pp. 12–14 — direct post-Hurst source for the definition and the four associations with positive or negative underlying trend.
- David Hickson / Sentient Trader, Hurst's Trading Methodology — use of underlying trend in the post-Hurst operational formalisation; not an independent confirmation of Hickson's account.