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

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Of course, where's the problem
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Consistent application of the analysis in a tradable methodology.

Never seen it.
And it seems no one is capable of posting a string of charts with analysis attached to demonstrate.

There IS the problem.
 
gazelle said:
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 .
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rotflmao, we aren't the ones who have migrated over from hotcopper since being banned. Hope you are sleeping properly now


gazelle said:
Since this time my questions have been answered and I have also subsequently been barred from the site for the reasons of the above posts .
I am so upset I cant sleep properly .
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I can't answer for the Gann experts, but I found there were so many potential "turns" when I spent an otherwise useful chunk of my life trying to make Gann stuff work for me.

For example, one of Ganns techniques is squaring of price and time. Explained all in his books - but briefly it means is if there is 360 points in a major range, you would then look 360 days ahead (also 60, 90, 120, 180, etc) and then do the same with price from the high or low of that range.
Then there are other squares that have nothing to do with range size, but seem to work. Then there are the calendar day counts from tops to tops, lows to lows, etc. So, almost every day there would be "potential reversals". So then, when the real reversal actually happened, I didn't believe it.

So often I would find that time and price would indeed square out, but it didn't necessarily mean it would reverse. It was quite exciting to watch price go to the exact point on the exact day (sorry can't give specifics as I have packed all my old notes away) - but it did happen on numerous occasions.

The problem ended up that I had numerous squarings of time from all the major highs and lows coming in almost on a daily basis - most of which did not reverse the trend. Maybe more is taught in the later classes at SITM which I didn't complete to filter out this daily noise.

If I really wanted to further the Gann techniques, I would probably have a closer look at this course: http://www.adest.com.au/ - but would first want to make sure it is a complete course. I have lost trust in people peddling courses costing thousands. I am tired of paying for courses that, with slick marketing, make you believe that you are getting a full education for your money, only to find you just get the basics and have only paid a fraction of the full cost of education.

Another thought is some educators require their students to sign secrecy agreements, so could explain the reluctance to share. Not excusing the policy, just pointing out that it may exist. I don't know why they do this as most of the material is readily available, not only in Gann books, but by numerous other authors and lots of free stuff on the net.

Not sure if this answers your question, Tech - but it's to the best of my knowledge.
 
tech/a said:
Consistent application of the analysis in a tradable methodology.

Never seen it.
And it seems no one is capable of posting a string of charts with analysis attached to demonstrate.

There IS the problem.
Click to expand...

Just for you tech/a I will get my text of Gann out and we can deal with it properly. Need a few days though as I have for the last month been shifting and such things are still in storage.

I have not asserted him as a holy grail but he is a pat of the early development of where we are today

Struth I have a nephew (6 years IT at RMIT) who now works with a private group who trade currencies in seconds with the amounts of money some can only dream about and they make real bread, he has probably never heard of GANN and may never need to. But I find the background to these fellows interesting for me. And suppose you are correct in the sense that Gann is not to trade by (This thread ???) but for the investor has a great deal to offer for long term outlook.
 
explod said:
Just for you tech/a I will get my text of Gann out and we can deal with it properly. Need a few days though as I have for the last month been shifting and such things are still in storage....
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I'd be interested too, Explod.
 
I'd like to offer a different perspective.

Surely the objective should be to improve your edge if you can. This leads to the a question of how best to apply your limited time and resources for the best result, doesn't it?

Learning all the aspects of trading/investing is very involved, and there are so many different perspectives to consider. Learning Gann materials is very time consuming, and if you try to stumble through the red herring sources, it will not be very rewarding.

However, if you do cut through the nonsense, there is a wealth of information to help those wanting to use charting as their main analysis approach. The challenge is that this isn't easy to master, and just like the market, it is open ended and never ending. So the question for each individual is if this is worthwhile committing time and resources to.

Firstly you need to estimate if you think you have the aptitude and capability to learn this material, and persevere with it. Secondly you have to be prepared to spend at least 3 years on this at minimum to make this work. Thirdly, you really need a good source of information that won't confuse you, and that will at least derive some benefits conceptually to improve your edge. In my view that shortcut comes from Bill McLaren.

Charting:

McLaren cuts to the chase in teaching good charting skills, and simplifies the whole thing to make it clear. Initially the focus is on learning how markets trend, purely looking at bar chart and volume and the patterns without indicators.

For McLaren, at the heart of understanding trends is understanding counter trends. The core idea is to look for patterns of trend which tell you a lot about what the market is doing. He also addresses wave theory and how this can be utilized. He displays chart after chart giving commentary on a range of different patterns in different markets to get the foundations of charting over to the viewer.

Understanding charts in a nutshell:

1. Pattern
2. Time
3. Price

Trading Rules:

McLaren's materials actually do give very precise approaches for trading rules including where and how to take partial profits, and in what technical situations to set time and price targets (entry and exit rules are discussed in depth). It is precisely not about picking tops and bottoms – this is to be avoided. It is about understanding counter trends and recognizing when the trend is at risk. What he does is to arm you with the capability for setting your own system up for your style.

Hence the claim there is no system is wrong. There are a range of alternatives available depending on how you want to trade. Examples I can think of are: long term, short term, mid term, trend trading, contrarian, counter trend trading, hedging, highly leveraged, stocks, commodities, Forex, Indexes, etc.

What did I learn that was useful?:

1. Markets aren't random (more like a chaos model)
2. Markets move in cycles
3. There are discernible patterns
4. If probabilities are understood this constitutes a significant edge

If you can master the time factor, then this too constitutes a significant edge. Yes it is a very involved subject requiring an understanding of patterns of trend, understanding counter trends, but once understood really changes the way you perceive markets.

Regards

Magdoran
 
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater:

In my view there is great value in some of the ideas that came out of the “Gann quadrant” of thinking. Yes there is a lot of nonsense and dodgy course vendors, but that's true for any quadrant of the trading/investing sphere isn't it? How many different dog and pony shows are out there? Just look on the Internet (I'd love to see a researcher look into this, it'd be hilarious to see how many there are and what kind they are).

I again alert people to the work wavepicker and I did when it comes to demonstrating how to use a forecasting style which we did in advance time after time (people keep saying no one has done this - “short memory”?). This doesn't mean you're going to be right every time, or that this is a panacea with a cast iron guarantee of success. We all know that this is not realistic. What the approach is about is assessing the probabilities and making sound judgments about managing uncertainty – essentially a style of trading.

Let's get the right attitude to studying the market:

This is a complex subject, and it is controversial, which is why time after time we have polemic after polemic, and usually between the ignorant versus the newbie Gann zealot.

Just for the record, I'm a person who likes to trade the markets and has a burning desire to continually build and refine a decisive edge, and use whatever resources are out there to achieve better trading methods. So, I'm not a “Gannist” or a “Gann” apologist. Personally I couldn't care less if Gann made a billion or never made a cent. What matters to me is that I have significantly benefited from the ideas I have gleaned. I also believe I have helped some others to do the same, and I feel good about that.

I see it as a waste of time arguing the same circular arguments with the detractors who have an emotionally negative view. Often they are trolls, or are people who are not prepared to do their own work, or had a bad experience with a Gann charlatan. Equally there are the Gann zealots who are arrogant and dismissive and either publish piles of text that doesn't make much sense, or are just downright rude. I have no interest in engaging with anyone who has this kind of negative attitude, hence I will politely ignore this kind of rude behavior.

What I find interesting is that some people spend years with moving averages /oscillators and back testing in a very narrow paradigm of thinking and spend a lot of money on courses, software and a host of other expenses. Often the end result is not pretty. So why do we not see more condemnation on this? I suspect because it is the dominant money pit, and there are a few more people doing it.

Anything of value takes effort to acquire:

The perspective I'm venturing is formed from having done the due diligence and really considering the alternatives. It doesn't mean I'm right, and it doesn't mean the majority will agree with my perspective, but it is from a position of having done a lot of research both in theory and in practice. Let's aim to raise the tone here from a slugging match to something a little more constructive please.

Regards

Magdoran
 
Sails

Your description fits with everyone I have come in contact with who has used Gann.

Another thought is some educators require their students to sign secrecy agreements, so could explain the reluctance to share
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There may well be more to the agenda than exposing "trading secrets" seeing his works are available generally to the public.

I again alert people to the work wavepicker and I did when it comes to demonstrating how to use a forecasting style which we did in advance time after time (people keep saying no one has done this - “short memory”?).
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Moggie
I do remeber a great deal of work based around Elliott not Gann. Point me to the archive please.


In my own case (over 15 yrs) I have probably invested $20k in software and data feeds.
Another $3k on books,and about the same on seminars.
Countless hrs of research and learning time as I'm sure we all can a test to. Personally I maybe where those who dont complain are---happily profitable.
You'd expect that with the vast number who do venture into Technical analysis that you WOULD hear more complaints of ---just cant become profitable---but many in this field have demonstarated more than once that they are and all can be. Mind you its not found in the conventional tech analysis draw---not for me anyway.

However, if you do cut through the nonsense
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Why does there need to be nonsense? Surely Gann didnt originate "nonsense? Everything else I have delved into is pure from Elliott to Steidmayer to P&F to VSA--blah.


Understanding charts in a nutshell:

1. Pattern
2. Time
3. Price
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Agreed but there are many ways to trade profitably without the need to spend 10000 hrs learning Gann.
Time is nice but in my view not a necessity to trading success.


McLaren's materials actually do give very precise approaches for trading rules
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Excellent so there should be no problem for you or another taught in the works of McLaren in demonstrating with a few charts the Gann aspect of a few trades from entry to trade management to exit.
 
Gann did not understand P&F
he called them space charts

He took the method and tried to apply it to clock time charts

eg the diagonal forecasting lines squaring price and time
idea of vibration ( fluctuation )

P&F developed in the 19th century to track the manipulation of the Harrimans
to reveal the True Trend

It is the only type of chart that can because it converges to the actual tick chart ( other charts of this type eg renko range bars etc also )

This convergence meant it was used at tick level to economic cycle scale..

It filtered the random from the manipulated to reveal the trend of manipulation.

Thrust reaction halfway points 50% all define eachother

the 50% level ( along with secondary tops bottoms ) dates back to the 19 century

The 50% level is an invariant ...When ever it is crossed the trend becomes doubtful and what was reaction maybe really is a new thrust in a different direction. Then watch the momentum ( these charts really have it )

Two true trend fluctuation charts ( 1 box move to 3 if want more clarity etc ) box size here is based on an absolute adaptive scale ( volatility defined )

DOW

Shanghai

Random removed to reveal Harriman's trend ( The manipulative cycle )

The structure at the tick level is retained in all it's proportions..
( clock time charts can just not do THIS )

What to learn ?

I would say P&F

learn all about trends as they are

Dynamic ( all fluctuates ) ---support resistance thrust reaction 50% levels
all dynamic , all movement..

Relative Strength

Then learn volume analysis
You will understand it better





motorway
 

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tech/a said:
How does this vary from a "trend".
Never heard of this.
Got any info?
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tech - see post #103 of this thread where Motorway discussed Harriman's manipulation of certain railway stocks.
 
Well I know of only 1 that could say they emulated



BUFFETT.

Wont be long and it will look like this.

BUFFETT

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
 

Using rhetoric like the above borders on being paranoid of those who are sceptical , no need to be rude when defending pie in the sky .
Now smile & be a good boy ..
esok:
 

Thank you for your suggestion that I migrate back to hotcopper. Believe me or disbelieve me, but I've never been a member of hotcopper. You would be well advised to get your facts straight before you put your mouth into gear and make a fool of yourself.

Since you've been so good as to offer me your suggestion, it's only fitting that I return the favour in kind by offering you a suggestion.
Here it is......Rather than portraying yourself as a childish little person of small character who gets angry and upset and abusive when someone challenges their beliefs, you would earn more respect by posting something of value such as a chart or two to walk us through a Gann trade.
No need for a live chart giving a blow by blow description as the trade unfolds....a chart after the event would be sufficient to give those interested some insight into how you apply Gann analysis.
That's not such a big ask - plenty of people on ASF have posted charts to show their trading strategies. It's called 'helping other people' - it's one of the objectives of this forum, but clearly it's a challenge that you're not up to.
Showing a bit of substance is obviously not one of your strong points - you prefer to spit the dummy and degrade yourself by engaging in the immature practice of name-calling.
OK, go back to your name-calling then.....in that area at least, you do appear to have some talent.
 

Sails

I got a smile by reading all those testimonials about how good David Hunt's forecasts are.
I suspect that, typical of people who are trying to sell courses, he spruiks about the ones that came true, but keeps quiet about those that don't.
For example, I don't see anything about his call in early 2008, when he said the US market would end the year 'significantly higher than where it is now'.
Yet that's what he said at an ATAA meeting at which he was the guest speaker in early 2008. I know, because I was in the audience and I wrote it down.

David Hunt has for many years been in the business of organising trading workshops and seminars on behalf of high profile trading educators like Larry Williams, Dan Gramza and Jake Bernstein. More recently he's decided to personally cut himself a slice of the lucrative trading seminar business by running a seminar of his own.
The question is, can he trade himself? If he can't, then he's unlikely to have anything worthwhile to offer traders by telling them how he does things.

Having bought a couple of trading courses myself in my early years as a trader, and having been disappointed in every single one of these courses, I too am sceptical of people who make their living from selling courses. With the benefit of hindsight I should have insisted on seeing the last two years of trading statements of anyone whose course I was considering buying. No trading statements - no course purchase from me.
None of them would have complied with my request to show their statements, and I would have saved myself the cost of the course. Fortunately I never allowed myself to get roped in to paying the really big dollars for any course. $2500 was the most expensive one I bought. It lost me 11 of my first 13 SPI trades even though I stuck exactly to the rules.

If you ever get serious about David Hunts course, or anyone else's, I suggest you demand to see his last two years trading statements. If they're impressive, he won't hesitate to show them. If he won't show them, walk away.
When people are asked to pay thousands for a trading course, they have every right to expect to see concrete proof that the course owner is a very capable trader.
 
bunyip said:
When people are asked to pay thousands for a trading course, they have every right to expect to see concrete proof that the course owner is a very capable trader.
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Maybe the ASF community should put their heads together and create a free, quality course to teach the important across-the-board basics and have a series of "Intro to..." sections covering a variety of different styles, time-frames and perspectives.

Kind of like Sir O's beginners thread but more structured, more meat and a variety of contributors. It might take a couple of years to piece together and it would be multiples of times more valuable than the crap that costs thousands and "teaches" esoteric non-transferrable concepts. (It might reach the point where it was worth selling and could become an income stream for Joe.)


....just thinking out loud.
 
If they're impressive, he won't hesitate to show them
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Exactly.


The problem isnt that educators charge for their course---the problem lies in the genral public not being able to recognise a true educator from a scammer.
Why should education be free?
Would you work for nothing?

But if its that good why the need to tell everyone?

If a guys got a method that can be consistently profitable AND make X$/yr teaching it then hes pretty damned smart in my view as he can double his trading returns (Or more) trading the profit with his method!
 
tech/a said:
Why should education be free?
Would you work for nothing?
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What's that got to do with anything? No-one is being asked to give up their day job. It's about a structured, community-focused collaboration.

Teaching and seeing others progress can be the greatest reward. Not everything is about money and financial gain.
 
tech/a said:
How does this vary from a "trend".
Never heard of this.
Got any info?
Click to expand...

If you tossed a coin 20,000 times
and there were 10050 heads and 9050 tails

Is the coin biased is there a real trend ?

if a stock fluctuates 20,000 times

and there were net gain or loss of 50 units of fluctuation

is there a real trend ?

What would you make a unit of fluctuation in order to
filter out the smaller fluctuations that have an appearance of randomness]

( Important when viewed from the a particular magnitude )

So you could have a high degree of confidence that a trend was unfolding
ending or beginning ?

These two charts have such a scale.

If you look at the DOW chart

You should notice that momentum significantly slowed before the trend reversed at the top , months crowded together , 2006 is a very compressed

( The chart often stops when it is time to get on or off )

And there is a dip below a significant 50% point
and a secondary top ( even the natural trend lines very 19th century )

What does momentum do then ? It increases through 08/09

changes in activity ( acceleration ) are more important than current speed ( velocity )..

The shape of this chart will not change with different Box Size
Just smaller or larger scale

If you have the data you could go right down to tick level
and this chart ( though enormous ) would be proportioned much the same.

But with what look like fluctuations being revealed as trends too.

But one trend rules them all

The main trend of manipulation..

In this sense to speak of the weekly trend or the monthly trend
has no meaning

There is just the one trend
speeding up and slowing down

one column in 2006 took 6 mths to form ( the trend was slow unfolding on approx a monthly scale)

one area in 2008 is moving faster than daily...

The chart is doing the timing ... It times..

The one trend on the scale you are interested is the one caused by the bias in the coin, the manipulation.

The other movements have the appearance and behaviour of randomness.

A bar chart would give as much space to the trend in 2006
as in 2008 even though it would be filling the chart up with noise.

who ever was flipping the coin was getting very tired ( we are charting the flips not the clock ticking )

noise = false signal / because there is no information present..

But the chart will change it's time frame to as fast as the frequency of your data.. If information starts to unfold at that speed ...

When I read Gann I see a lot of P&F method trying to be applied to a bar chart... It is understandable because you look at how predictable a clock
and If only the market trends unfolded like a clock ..You could Predict

But You CAN"T

So I would tend to say That what in particular makes Gann Gann

Is not good for trading..

Fooled By (clock) time...

motorway
 
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