[TheNegotiator]

I have no particular experience of Gann and his teachings whatsoever but I would like to start this thread to learn and share anything on the subject. Whether the arguments are that certain aspects are pure lunacy(pun intended!) or if there is actually more merit in any of the methods that arguably the greatest ever trader/investor that ever lived employed. So I'll be trying to find info and learn about this topic from scratch and any additions to get me going would be much appreciated!!

[Dharmik Team]

William Delbert Gann was born June 6, 1878, in Lufkin, Texas, to Sam H. and Susan R. Gann, immigrants to Texas from the British Isles. Lufkin is midway between Houston and Texarkana. This part of Texas is cotton country and Gann’s parents lived on a Neches River bottom cotton ranch near Lufkin. He grew up around the cotton warehouses in Angelina.

If you are interested to read the entire article about the life of William Gann visit: http://bit.ly/gqd43I

[TheNegotiator]

Okay, so this is what I have so far:-

Pattern- The study of specific market swings.

Price- Considers specific prices that recur with "vibrations", Gann angles and retracement targets.

Time- Seasonal, numerical and social cycles. Astrological cycles.

Nothing so far is particularly unusual other than the astrological analysis. At this point I am not too sure about the relevance of this and I am not especially comfortable with it. Plus it's something that I have never looked at before so I will ignore it at least for now and try to further understand the techniques outlined above. Anything I have missed(and I am sure I have) please post it so I can update the list.

[BigKahuna]

I have not posted here at Trader's Lab in quite a long time, but had to comment on your Gann thoughts, Negotiator. I have studied everything regarding Gann I could get my hands on over a trading career that has spanned three decades. Some has been useful, most has not.

Unfortunately, Gann techniques are all speculation. He did not leave detailed instructions on his trading techniques...it is all open to interpretation and speculation on students part. In the end, I could not come any closer to absolute time-price projections using interpretations of Gann than I could with techniques that where clear, scalable, and much easier to use.

This is my personal experience, yours may be different.

[zdo]

I agree with BigKahuna about all we have are adherent’s later projections on Gann and not much real Gann material. I, too, studied all the published and unpublished Gann material I could get my hands on and after all that study I only occasionally glance at some of his angle stuff with the ags mostly just to see if “by coincidence”

… ages and stages ago - my own big 'projection' on what differentiated Gann was that he was an ace at knowing just when to exit. The benefit of that came not from Gann, but from finding my own strengths that were 'hidden' in the projections...

Yes you can systematically (with confirmations or not) trade Gann’s various ‘timing’ and time price triggers from his techniques… but you could also do the same just as successfully with something like Sloman's Delta method or etc, etc.
And you can take triggers ~x degrees before astrological aspects, etc – something he never mentioned. Why not? I bet he never noticed it.

….Anyways the only valuable Gann work I’ve ever really learned and profited from was from ‘students’ who used his concepts to develop systems and (more telling) his terminology to describe their own systems. For me, an old example of that is Gerald Marisch’s book The W.D. Gann Method of Trading – basic, not so precision oriented, trading techniques with a heavy Gann oriented overlay…

The most profitable Gann stuff I have ever used is the Gann Clusters feature on G.E.T.… again Tom Joseph’s idea for this was only inspired by ‘Gann’. He didn’t really use Gann’s angles, etc.

[BlowFish]

Ganns basic price action stuff seems pretty solid and somewhat overlooked. Also I have a friend who is quite the student of Gann (including the more 'esoteric' stuff) who tells me his money management was pretty robust. Again not very 'sexy' compared to calling absolute market tops based on plannetary alignments.

[TheNegotiator]

Thanks guys for the input so far! I realise that to really get anything out of Gann will not be all that easy, but then what is? So I am going to continue looking into it more and see what comes of it. I think it'll be interesting whatever the outcome.

[BlowFish]

You can find details of some of his price action stuff (swing charts and what not) over at fibonacii trader (software) web site bottom left under downloads look for FT Journal Issues. It presents a fairly simple but comprehensive way of classifying price behaviour. A good resource imho.