Gann Analysis: Experts Share Their Journey – Part 1

W.D. Gann, a renowned author and Wall Street expert, utilised his extensive knowledge of mathematics, geometry, and cyclical analysis to make profitable trades during some of the most tumultuous market environments of the early 1900s. After working for several New York-based brokerages, Gann gained recognition for his ability to accurately predict the 1907 stock market panic. This led Gann to found his own firm in 1908.

 

Gann was a dedicated scholar who spent years studying historical records at the Astor Library in New York and the British Museum of London, some dating back as far as 1820. Through this research, he combined his knowledge with natural cycles and eventually discovered what some consider to be his greatest contribution to trading – the Master Time Factor.

 

Even in his later years, Gann remained committed to sharing his knowledge and insights with others. He travelled across the country hosting seminars and publishing newsletters and courses offering intricate details on how to forecast market trends successfully. He continued this work until his death at the age of 77.

 

As we approach what would have been Gann’s birthday on June 6, 1878, we reached out to several Gann experts to gain their insights. We explore their initial experiences with Gann, how they’ve adapted his methods over time, and the role of Gann Analysis in the age of AI In this first instalment of our three-part blog series, we explore how these experts first encountered Gann at a time when Investor Forums, Social Media, and Wikipedia weren’t yet available to facilitate the sharing and discussion of new trading techniques.

 

To begin with, here’s a quick introduction to our Gann experts:

 

Alan Oliver

Alan is a self-taught trader who has been trading markets since 1989. After his initial success and subsequent losses, he realised he needed to learn more about trading in order to be successful. He studied extensively, made a list of his mistakes, and slowly regained his profits. Alan Oliver wrote the book ‘Trading with the Gods’. He uses a combination of the Fibonacci series and W.D. Gann’s work in his trading and has a website to help traders understand these tools. Alan believes trading requires discipline, concentration, and determination and that anyone can become a great market trader if they are willing to put in the effort. He has given many seminars and speeches on the topic of Gann throughout Asia and Australia.

Trading with Gann

 

Jon Kirk

Jon has been trading for over 35 years using W.D. Gann’s methods for over 25 of them. He has been a private full-time Gann trader for the last 15 years. His corporate experience in strategic planning, logistics, and management has been integral to his success. Jon’s “where the rubber meets the road” approach focuses on using Gann’s techniques to generate regular income from the market, and he considers himself an “accidental educator”.

Inspired by Gann

 

Darren Wilson

Darren is an investor, trader, and former president of the Australian Technical Analysts Association (ATAA) ACT Chapter. He is a contributor to the Property Share Market Economics (PSE) online business, editor of the monthly ‘Boom Bust Bulletin’ and weekly ‘Property Cycle Investor’ newsletters, and a follower of Phil Anderson’s work on real estate cycles since 2013. With a unique perspective on government thinking from his previous career in the Federal public service, he seeks the best companies that benefit from government-granted licences for long-term investments. He is committed to researching and helping others develop their investment and trading plans and is also a keen student of the work of other educators.

Property Share Market Economics

 

Ian Flack

Ian is a Melbourne-based Financial Planner, Futures Trader and Share Investor, previously employed in the AFL football industry. Ian has been interested in financial markets since the 1980s, with a Diploma in Technical Analysis from ATAA and certification as a Certified Financial Technician by the International Federation of Technical Analysts. He is also a past President of ATAA and completed a Diploma of Financial Planning.

Flack Group

Can you tell us about how you first became interested in WD Gann’s theories? What grabbed your attention over other T/A methods of analysing the markets?

Jon Kirk: I first came across Gann back in around 1986. I’d been trading Stocks and some options using an advisory service black box system, and made quite a bit of money and gave most of it back. I figured I needed to know more and be self-reliant if the trading caper was going to yield any results for me. 

I studied many different methods, read many books, and tried to figure out how things worked, I knew I needed a system. I spent a lot of money with trading experts and some of them had reasonable bases to work from, but their returns annualised were not great to my mind. Maybe I was greedy. 

Stochastics, moving averages, guessing reversals around Fibonacci levels did not seem to be for me. Lots of moving parts using indicators that were based on hindsight. During this time I picked up an old book in a second-hand bookstore that Gann had written. It kind of resonated with me and shortly after I bought a third-party course on Gann.

I was hooked. The third-party course was good but not definitive. It gave me the taste. After years of study and layering of information, I now recognise what was in that course. 

I became a little disillusioned and kind of drifted away from trading for many years. When I came back to it I tracked down Nikki Jones who owned the Gann archive, bought as much of Gann’s original material as they had in print, and set about collecting data and reconstructing his lessons. I guess the rest is history.  A much longer story, much work, but history. 

I’ve now been trading full-time under my own steam for over 20 years. So, I’ve seen plenty of ups and plenty of downs – the brokers come and go but Gann and the cycles have remained consistent.

I think it’s important to remember there is no fast money in trading, it’s a long game, a career. 

Whatever you work with must resonate with you, as must the markets you trade. I’m a Navigator. So for me, geometry, repeating cycles and time counts, and astronomy, for example, were easy for me to subscribe to. 

Then the work started! I spent decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars studying with the best in the industry and purchased about everything written on the topic. I can recommend some great material. And I’m happy to – in the end for me it was a realisation that it was all in Gann’s books. 

 

Alan Oliver: As an employee of ANZ Bank in 1989, I was afforded some bank shares as an annual bonus. This sparked an interest in trading markets and I was given a book by a relative. That book purchased at a book fair was ‘45 Years in Wall Street’. The title had me interested and an admiration soon developed when the author claimed that men can make fortunes if they are prepared to do some groundwork and study charts and movements.

As my initial entry into trading occurred after the 1987 crash, everything I later bought just went up as the markets recovered from the severe panic. It was a euphoric time to be trading. Everything went skywards, but as I was soon to find out, Gann’s words were so true. You must be prepared to work diligently at trading and consider it as a business and not just a money-making hobby.

The Gann methods I researched were done pre-computer, and the PC was several years into the future. So there was little else to look into, which in itself may have removed a lot of the confusion that exists today where traders hunt the web, YouTube etc. for the easy ways to make money. Looking back on it I am grateful for the opportunity to start to research trading when I did.

 

Ian Flack: I first became interested in Gann when I first joined the ATAA and a fellow member who was a successful trader recommended, I read ‘45 Years in Wall St’.

 

Darren Wilson: Phil Anderson, writer of ‘The Secret Life of Real Estate & Banking’ and director of propertysharemarketeconomics.com was the first to make me aware of his work. My aspirations were to tie in Gann’s work with what I was researching about the 18.6-year Real Estate Cycle and how each affects each other.

But to be frank it wasn’t until I started drawing Gann’s exercises from The Truth of the Stock Tape onto some charting paper that the true brilliance of his methods came alive. It taught me how to read a chart using price AND time.

As you can see, many of the experts we spoke with credit their introduction to Gann through his published works. 

Throughout his career, Gann authored numerous books, newsletters, and courses, with one of the most famous being his novel, ‘Tunnel Through the Air’. Some readers believe the key to Gann’s discoveries is hidden within the storyline of this book. Another essential read, especially for novice traders, is ‘45 Years in Wall Street’, which Gann published in 1949 and is still highly regarded today.

For Gann, writing and publishing these works was a way to share the knowledge he had gained through his exhaustive research and experience with others. As he stated in the forward to ‘45 Years in Wall Street’, his primary motivation was to give others the valuable gift of knowledge. Gann had no interest in fame. He had more than enough income to meet his needs. He wanted to help others achieve success in the markets.

Thanks to Gann’s dedication to sharing his insights, experts like Jon, Alan, Ian, and Darren, have been able to build on his teachings and equip a new generation of traders with the tools they need to profit from the markets.

While reading can certainly provide valuable insights, there comes a point where it’s essential to put your knowledge into practice by creating your own trading strategy. In our next article we’ll shift our focus from the past to the present day, exploring some of our expert’s preferred Gann methods. We’ll also delve into how their understanding of these techniques has evolved over time, as well as how they integrate risk management principles into their trading.

To purchase Gann’s books mentioned above, please visit our friends at WDGann.com

Want to know more about W.D. Gann’s life? Check out our article here.

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