Gann, honestly, is it a good basis for trading?

[weird]

At best they waffle on about risk management
and position sizing etc



Purely My

motorway

Interesting comments, but pick up the Jack Schwager books, and you will see many different successful ways of trading ... look at what is common between them.

Find an edge, exploit that edge as much as possible, in most trading, 1 good or few trades or few months, can make a year. It is not about being right, just turning up with your dish each night regardless, and being able to continue to do so (risk management/position sizing), if you have and believe in that edge. Having to be right, and not accepting losses and loosing streaks, makes one continue to look for another method or giving up on a perfectly good one.

 

[motorway]

Interesting comments, but pick up the Jack Schwager books, and you will see many different successful ways of trading ... look at what is common between them.

Find an edge, exploit that edge as much as possible, in most trading, 1 good or few trades or few months, can make a year. It is not about being right

That is what being right IS......


But the question is How robust and real is the edge...

Lets say Harriman happened to buy ( by habit ) three days after a drive down.

And someone ( Gann ? it is just an example ) divines a 3 day vibration/cycle

and make that a rule.... He has an edge as long as Harriman is active in the stocks he manipulated and does not change his habits,,


But it is only a relatively real edge at best..

3 days was only a "tell"

Like the astrology with the Horses

Gann reading list----------->The Silver Key

It is not the horses that matter , their horoscope is MEANINGLESS

IT is NOT the horses---------Same.

motorway

 

[motorway]

The Horses are the last to know



Edward Henry Harriman

EDWARD HENRY HARRIMAN (1848-1909), American financier and railroad magnate, son of the Rev. Orlando Harriman, rector of St George's Episcopal church, Hempstead, L.I., was born at Hempstead on the 25th of February 1848. He became a broker's clerk in New York at an early age, and in 1870 was able to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange on his own account. For a good many years there was nothing sensational in his success, but he built up a considerable business connexion and prospered in his financial operations. Meanwhile he carefully mastered the situation affecting American railways.

In this respect he was assisted by his friendship with Mr Stuyvesant Fish, who, on becoming vice-president of the Illinois Central in 1883, brought Harriman upon the directorate, and in 1887, being then president, made Harriman vice-president; twenty years later it was Harriman who dominated the finance of the Illinois Central, and Fish, having become his opponent, was dropped from the board.

It was not till 1898, however, that his career as a great railway organizer began with his formation, by the aid of the bankers, Kuhn, Loeb & Co., of a syndicate to acquire the Union Pacific line, which was then in the hands of a receiver and was generally regarded as a hopeless failure. It was soon found that a new power had arisen in the railway world. Having brought the Union Pacific out of bankruptcy into prosperity, and made it an efficient instead of a decaying line, he utilized his position to draw other lines within his control, notably the Southern Pacific in 1901.

These extensions of his power were not made without friction, and his abortive contest in 1901 with James J. Hill for the control of the Northern Pacific led to one of the most serious financial crises ever known on Wall Street. But in the result he became the dominant factor in American railway matters. At his death, on the 9th of September 1909, his influence was estimated to extend over 60,000 m. of track, with an annual earning power of $700,000,000 or over.

Astute and unscrupulous manipulation of the stock markets, and a capacity for the hardest of bargaining and the most determined warfare against his rivals, had their place in this success, and Harriman's methods excited the bitterest criticism, culminating in a stern denunciation from President Roosevelt himself in 1907.

Nevertheless, besides acquiring colossal wealth for himself, he undoubtedly created for the American public a vastly improved railway service, the benefit of which survived all controversy as to the means by which he triumphed over the obstacles in his way.


Harriman

Controlled the News and the trading

He controlled the companies themselves

partner of Rockefeller and Rogers

He was not unconsiously intune with natural law..

HE WAS the one PULLING THE STRINGS

He scared you out and then he bored you out

He accumulated and distributed

There was no top or bottom unless He wanted one

And if he did he created one...

He was the market .. He was the only Star ( for a time ) That mattered..

He was the LAW

motorway

 

[weird]

Motorway, I know where you are coming from, and I have complete respect for your comments.

Not continuing with your post, but this overall thread, this mystical Gann, just doesn't seem to be as refined as the more practical techniques which also fall under his umbrella which includes simple 1-2-3 patterns or A-B-C patterns, which is also covered by EW or even Dunnigan. None of this is the holy grail ... far from it.

The other stuff, of magical returns just goes to the way of mystics.

I've have actually experienced magical returns, with a Managed Futures fund, using Stedlmayer or Market Profile techniques, and this was not cryptic, and it did not require a million hours of study, and also an understanding family while learning it, however more while trading it ! It only required a set of steel balls. And, this is not always necessary a good thing ...

But techniques that worked during a particular period, without employing position sizing ... in the former example 5 years of boom, followed by a short period of massive gloom. Think the current market down turn but both going long and short, resulting in a much harsher return in a shorter period.

I am sure if the boom period was documented and published by the trader, but was written cryptically (However at least I can vouch for that trader during that period, and I should add it was a very basic strategy), that it would have the full mystic of Gann.

 

[MRC & Co]

He scared you out and then he bored you out

He accumulated and distributed

LOL, sounds like the same guys today!

First they try squeeze you, then they make it take so long you get bored and jumpy and close up and right at that minute, they HIT IT!

Tricky, perfected, little scum bags!

 

[MRC & Co]

Find an edge, exploit that edge as much as possible, in most trading, 1 good or few trades or few months, can make a year. It is not about being right, just turning up with your dish each night regardless

Another fantastic piece of advice.

Good stuff motorway and weird!

 

[bunyip]

Have you studied his books, from your post I doubt it.

Gann was a good trader over many years. He also put in many years of historical research, in those days spending years at the library collecting data from old newspaper. From such work (there were many others) has grown the foundation of much we now enjoy aided by our computers to make good trades if we follows the rules and have the discipline.

It is easy to make off handed criticism but Gann's work is extensive and a lot of study of him is required to gain the whole benefit and picture of where he is coming from. I do not profess to know it all, and as a trader very fallable as most who are truthfull admit, but many basics of Gann have stood me in good stead. eg. sell when everyone else is buying and vice versa and above all follow the trend of not just the stock but particularly the product that is making it so.

However in this dscipline Gann is only a small part, there are very many other great traders and writers of same to be digested over time to, in fact the way that the markets change so rapidly we need to gleen all that we can get our hands on.

Often I also see crticisms of Robert Kyosaki, sure his focus is on selling books but his words are very good for those seeking to learn about investing, they are all starting points only, and if they did not provide them someone else would and they too would be criticised for putting there hand out.

When you have produced what these types of researchers have put forward then just maybe one can criticise. I suspect however with the scholarship requied to do that you may then find yorself holding them up in admiration.

No one today would set off like Burke and Wills to cross the continent, they did, they died and it could be said that they were a failure. However they are held up as great pioneers opening up a dry and hostile country.

So lets look at the good in Gann and many others and thank them for the legacy left to us for the taking if we bother to pick up the books. And you dont have to spend a cent, it can be picked up on the net with ease these days.

I've looked at some of the books Gann wrote. I've read a number of Gann books written by others. I own the 'Gann Made Easy' course by Bill McLaren.

You claim Gann was 'a good trader over many years'.
On what evidence do you base this claim? According to Gann's son, Gann couldn't make a living from trading and had to rely on sales of his books and courses to support himself and his family.
Sounds remarkably like some of the people who sell Gann courses these days.

I keep hearing about the 50 million dollars that Gann is supposed to have made - a staggering sum of money in todays values. Where is the proof of the 50 million? His estate when he died wasn't worth one million, let alone fifty.
The claims about Gann being such an amazing trader are about as credible as the claims that Livermore was a trading master. Livermore kept going broke. No matter how much money he made, he kept losing it all because clearly he failed to learn the all important lessons of money management and risk control.
How good is a trader who neglects risk control - he's an accident waiting to happen and will sooner or later get wiped out, just like Livermore kept doing.
Yet the legend of Livermore the great trader is stubbornly believed by people who are keen to have a hero to worship.
I think Gann is probably hero worshipped for much the same reason.

One of Gann's quotes was 'The first higher bottom is the safest place to buy, and the first lower top is the safest place to sell'.
Well golly gee.....was Gann really the first one to work that out? I'd suggest that other traders before Gann would have come to the same conclusion.
Gann said follow the trend. Good advice, but here again, I'd suggest that good traders were doing exactly that before Gann came on the scene and starting writing down this sort of information.
Someone writes a book that espouses the virtues of methods that have been used for decades, it can look like they themselves were the first to discover and use these methods.

We can debate the Gann issue forever, but I've yet to see anyone demonstrate how Gann strategies can consistently put you into a trade right at the start of a trend, and take you out of the trade right at the end of the trend.
The best I've seen from any method, Gann or anything else, is an entry shortly after the trend has begun, and an exit shortly before or after the trend has finished.
I know at least half a dozen strategies and setups that can do that. None of them involve forecasting, all of them are so simple that they can be easily and quickly learned by anyone. Many of them can be found by software with scanning ability, meaning that hundreds of charts can be searched in just a few minutes to find trade setups.
In other words, the best strategies can do no more than enable an astute trader to take bites out of trends.
Now, if any of you Ganners can demonstrate how Gann strategy can consistently achieve any more than taking bites out of trends, then please do so.

 

[gazelle]

Bunyip Beamstas and other like minded Lemmings . I cant be bothered answering your simplistic and narrow minded questions anymore . Mushroom farming must be a lucrative business as you guys seem to be multiplying by the minute . Based on your assertion you seem to have already aquired a detailed and intuitive understanding on the techniques and applications of Gann so why ask me to outline the parameters of my trading system . And so it is another blinded Lemming joins the line . Thankyou for not raining on my parade and if you will allow me to offer you some advice may I kindly suggest that you migrate back to hotcopper in time for the mating season . in other words p+++ss off .

 

[Trembling Hand]

Bunyip Beamstas and other like minded Lemmings . I cant be bothered answering your simplistic and narrow minded questions anymore . Mushroom farming must be a lucrative business as you guys seem to be multiplying by the minute . Based on your assertion you seem to have already aquired a detailed and intuitive understanding on the techniques and applications of Gann so why ask me to outline the parameters of my trading system . And so it is another blinded Lemming joins the line . Thankyou for not raining on my parade and if you will allow me to offer you some advice may I kindly suggest that you migrate back to hotcopper in time for the mating season . in other words p+++ss off .

Yep and aint that a text book out come

"You don't understand, you're not open to our way, I'm wasting my time"

No idea weather Gann made money or not or if Gann methods once learnt will offer a sizable edge greater than the correct application of other trading methods. But its clear that no one that has come through this site can show the slightest evidence of a series of real trades and application.

And so the skeptics grow not through being close minded but through being inquisitive and looking into the box. As always with Gann finding that the actions of the very people that sing its praise are holding nothing..... again!!

 

[tech/a]

Yep and aint that a text book out come

"You don't understand, you're not open to our way, I'm wasting my time"

No idea weather Gann made money or not or if Gann methods once learnt will offer a sizable edge greater than the correct application of other trading methods. But its clear that no one that has come through this site can show the slightest evidence of a series of real trades and application.

And so the skeptics grow not through being close minded but through being inquisitive and looking into the box. As always with Gann finding that the actions of the very people that sing its praise are holding nothing..... again!!

From what I have seen over the years.
Gannists seem to be totally absorbed in "Making it work".
There is no trading method (Other than swing trading).
Gann is the illusion of complex perfection which returns the holy grail.
Gann left a great legacy and those who pedal it are for ever grateful.

Gazelle.
Unfortunately I don't think you have a trading methodology which returns you a consistent profit. Certainly not Gann based.


This thread without doubt answers its question.

 

[joeyr46]

One of Gann's quotes was 'The first higher bottom is the safest place to buy, and the first lower top is the safest place to sell'

My question is simply this how do you know where that first higher bottom is or if it is going to continue to go down so once again we use a look (pattern ,fib retracement or EW ) to give us a clue or am I missing something?

 

[soso]

One of Gann's quotes was 'The first higher bottom is the safest place to buy, and the first lower top is the safest place to sell'

My question is simply this how do you know where that first higher bottom is or if it is going to continue to go down so once again we use a look (pattern ,fib retracement or EW ) to give us a clue or am I missing something?

Every leg in the oppopsite direction of the trend could be the first leg of a new inverse trend. If the leg is impulsive (EW based or high momentum) you wait for a retracement of this leg (if it takes place), and if indeed looks like a correction (slow motion, ew corrective pattern etc) you have a high chance to catch the new trend or at least another leg of a larger correction (think wave C or 3 if you're lucky).

 

[beamstas]

Bunyip Beamstas and other like minded Lemmings . I cant be bothered answering your simplistic and narrow minded questions anymore . Mushroom farming must be a lucrative business as you guys seem to be multiplying by the minute . Based on your assertion you seem to have already aquired a detailed and intuitive understanding on the techniques and applications of Gann so why ask me to outline the parameters of my trading system . And so it is another blinded Lemming joins the line . Thankyou for not raining on my parade and if you will allow me to offer you some advice may I kindly suggest that you migrate back to hotcopper in time for the mating season . in other words p+++ss off .

My. Point. Exactly.

I can't really add to what TH and Tech/A have said.

Gann, honestly, is it a good basis for trading?
Obviously not

Gann, honestl,y is it a good way to fill your ego and not your wallet?
Yes

Brad

 

[explod]

One of Gann's quotes was 'The first higher bottom is the safest place to buy, and the first lower top is the safest place to sell'

My question is simply this how do you know where that first higher bottom is or if it is going to continue to go down so once again we use a look (pattern ,fib retracement or EW ) to give us a clue or am I missing something?

Gann diligently used the point and figure chart,wich from his historical research was consistently reliable at that time. There are rules to follow but on what is the uptick from the second low, being higher than the previous (bottom low) almost allways it would rise from that point and the bottom confirmed. A break below the line of the two bottoms was the stop loss but it was found this rarely occurred. Of course in todays context with so many traders following technical analysis this is much less the case. As I indicated in the last day here, Gann is one of the starting points for serious newcomers to understand the basics of charting. Point and figure is little used today but I still find it a very good way of identifying longer term trends as I am that type of investor (as distinct from a trader)

Depends where you are coming from. For the serious student I still believe he shouold be part of the carriculum. On a point and figure basis it is clear that the Dow Jones is in a downtrend, this type of information informs one for other decisions.

cheers explod

 

[sails]

.... but I still find it a very good way of identifying longer term trends as I am that type of investor (as distinct from a trader)...

Explod, I think the end of your sentence above might explain quite a bit. Longer term investors may well find TA that suits them and could easily include EW, Gann, etc. However, for the short term trader, Gann particularly becomes too labour intensive for a one man band.

Perhaps this is more where the conflicts lie as long term investors using Gann techniques probably only trade very rarely and happily fill in their spare time with in-depth analysis. Whereas TH might be hitting the buy or sell buttons all day long.

Just a thought...

 

[nomore4s]

As I indicated in the last day here, Gann is one of the starting points for serious newcomers to understand the basics of charting.

That's cr@p, I've never studied Gann and I don't intend to. There are plenty of sources to study to understand the basics of charting - and most of the links and info can be found right here at ASF with a bit of searching.

Point and figure is little used today but I still find it a very good way of identifying longer term trends as I am that type of investor (as distinct from a trader)

I also find P&F a useful tool but it isn't only restricted to longer term trends.

On a point and figure basis it is clear that the Dow Jones is in a downtrend, this type of information informs one for other decisions.

LMAO, a look at any chart will tell you the DOW is in a downtrend. The weekly chart is still very ugly.

 

[tech/a]

Gann diligently used the point and figure chart,wich from his historical research was consistently reliable at that time. There are rules to follow but on what is the uptick from the second low, being higher than the previous (bottom low) almost allways it would rise from that point and the bottom confirmed. A break below the line of the two bottoms was the stop loss but it was found this rarely occurred. Of course in todays context with so many traders following technical analysis this is much less the case. As I indicated in the last day here, Gann is one of the starting points for serious newcomers to understand the basics of charting. Point and figure is little used today but I still find it a very good way of identifying longer term trends as I am that type of investor (as distinct from a trader)

Depends where you are coming from. For the serious student I still believe he shouold be part of the carriculum. On a point and figure basis it is clear that the Dow Jones is in a downtrend, this type of information informs one for other decisions.

cheers explod

Hang on ---- Point and Figure?? All these Gann angles/fans and Astro analysis boils down to finding a first swing Low or high. By the way the ONLY time you can be 100% sure its a FIRST swing high OR low is when the 2nd swing is in place!

Explod, I think the end of your sentence above might explain quite a bit. Longer term investors may well find TA that suits them and could easily include EW, Gann, etc. However, for the short term trader, Gann particularly becomes too labour intensive for a one man band.

Perhaps this is more where the conflicts lie as long term investors using Gann techniques probably only trade very rarely and happily fill in their spare time with in-depth analysis. Whereas TH might be hitting the buy or sell buttons all day long.

Just a thought...

But wait its not JUST that----its the ability to find a LONG TERM trend in EITHER direction which calls for hrs of in depth analysis which once found means that the exponent doesnt have to spend hrs any more looking for entry and exit---they just trade it.

GREAT
Would a Gann exponent like to show us their analysis for the NEXT one (Walking Forward) and explain how they intend to trade it.

 

[explod]

However, for the short term trader, Gann particularly becomes too labour intensive for a one man band.

Absolutely and stategies for short term trading have to take on new and developing formulas by the day just to stay with the pack. My interest here is to highlight lines of enquiry for the newcomer who wants to get a thourough grounding. And as someone said yesterday, there are many others, I also gained a great deal from Market Wizards (much more than Gann) and there are two texts now on that, but on this thread we are talking Gann and I cant help chipping when some criticise out of hand without offerring reasonable explanation for it or making a contribution that is usefull, but that just stubborn me.

 

[explod]

But wait its not JUST that----its the ability to find a LONG TERM trend in EITHER direction which calls for hrs of in depth analysis which once found means that the exponent doesnt have to spend hrs any more looking for entry and exit---they just trade it.

Of course, where's the problem. I am not a Gann exponent by the way, but in his time when there was little available he made a valuable contribution. And for the serious student his part of history is very valuable as a forunner as in properly learning any subject.

 

[beamstas]

On a point and figure basis it is clear that the Dow Jones is in a downtrend, this type of information informs one for other decisions.

Brad