By Kevin O'Rourke

Not a prediction machine. A framework for reading the market cycle, and the exact prompts to put it to work yourself.

A business-cycle framework traced back through the economists who built it, paired with a tested library of AI prompts you can paste into any major model today.

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The AI Edge for Modern Investors, book cover
4
real market crises the framework is tested against, 1973 to 2022
5
AI model families tested against the same prompts
8
ready-to-use prompt templates in Appendix B
20
chapters, from 4,000 years of cycle theory to quantum computing
The Discipline
I

The cycle is the compass

Expansion, peak, contraction, trough. Burns and Mitchell measured them; leading, coincident, and lagging indicators still describe them. AI does not replace that framework. It reads it faster, and at a scale no desk can match by hand.

II

Rotation is the map

If the cycle tells you where you are, sector rotation tells you where capital should move next. Technology in booms, utilities in recessions: not because of a hunch, but because industries expand, contract, and rebound with the economy.

III

AI is a partner, not a prophet

The book will not promise guaranteed outperformance. What it offers is a sharper set of tools for the judgment calls successful investing always requires: how to prompt, verify, and stress-test: the skills that outlast any particular model.

What's Inside

Every chapter earns its place with a specific, usable mechanism.

Not a summary of what AI could theoretically do for your portfolio: the actual prompts, frameworks, and sourced history behind them.

01
The five-question stress test that tells you which of your positions would get hit hardest if oil jumped $20 overnight, rates rose a full point, or credit spreads blew out. Run before it happens, not after.
Chapter 17
02
What actually happened the last four times a sector's story ended: the 1973 oil shock that quadrupled oil prices, the dot-com bust that took technology and telecom down more than 70%, the 2007–09 financial crisis, and the 2020–22 pandemic and inflation rebound.
Chapter 6
03
A real prompt, run against real Freddie Mac and Redfin data, that shows exactly how to ask an AI model to stress-test a housing-sensitive portfolio, copy-paste ready, not a hypothetical.
Chapter 11 · Appendix B
04
A side-by-side test of five major AI model families (GPT, Claude, Gemini, Llama, and Grok) run against the same investing prompts, so you know which tool actually suits which task.
Chapter 12
05
A 4,000-year head start on market cycles: from Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream to a 19th-century economist correlating business cycles with sunspots, to the 1946 study that defined a recession. Sourced to the original texts.
Chapter 2
06
Why owning an S&P 500 index fund might mean less diversification than you think, including how a single sector can approach a third of the index, and what that meant during the March 2023 regional-bank stress.
Chapter 14
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Two free tools, built from the same frameworks the book teaches in full.

Interactive

The Five-Shock Stress Test

Enter a few tickers you hold and see a live preview of the Chapter 17 methodology: what happens to a portfolio if rates rise, oil spikes, credit spreads widen, volatility jumps, or the dollar strengthens.

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The Regime & Rotation Cheat Sheet

One page, three chained AI prompts, and the full four-phase framework, the same workflow Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Appendix B teach, compressed into something you can run today.

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Kevin O'Rourke, author of The AI Edge for Modern Investors
About the Author

Kevin O'Rourke

Kevin O'Rourke is a financial strategist and U.S. Army veteran. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering, competed on the football and track teams, and was commissioned as a Field Artillery officer, completing his MBA at the University of Oklahoma while stationed at Fort Sill.

After his military service, Kevin moved into the leading edge of technology, working in relational database systems and global packet-switched networking, early exposure to the kind of technological disruption he now writes about in financial markets. Over four decades, he has built a career guiding clients through complex market dynamics with a forward-looking, AI-enhanced approach.

Kevin was included in the 2024 edition of Marquis Who's Who in America. The AI Edge for Modern Investors reflects his current focus: helping a new generation of investors demystify AI, embrace economic cyclicality, and master the discipline of sector rotation.

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