William Delbert Gann traded in New York and Chicago from 1902 to 1955. During that period he wrote extensively of his methods of forecasting and analysing markets, and taught his techniques to others. But after his death he left no ‘successor’ and his writings fell into obscurity. In recent decades they have been revived again, but have suffered a frequent fate of knowledge, which is to be interpreted through the eyes and ears of the reader.

In ancient times all important knowledge was passed on from master to student. In this way the teacher could be certain that it was duplicated correctly. Gann left plenty of students, but none of these ever wrote about what he taught them. As a result, all modern writings have had to attempt to reconstruct what the Master was doing. While some have been very successful in doing so, many others have gone off on tangents. Almost every one has picked those elements of the original writings which appealed to him or her without necessarily trying to communicate the whole.

Another difficulty faced by the modern reader is that Gann wrote nearly 100 years ago. Writing styles were different then, and charts were difficult to reproduce. Thus many people today find his books and courses impenetrable, and in the absence of a chart they are frequently the subject of misinterpretation.

I have been studying the works of Gann since 2006. I do not claim to comprehend everything that he was doing, nor do I regard myself as being free from the very difficulties of interpretation enumerated above. However, I have endeavoured to counter-balance these by making you, the reader, aware of them, and also by being aware of them myself.

The approach here is not to delve into the esoteric aspects of what Gann was doing. This is a study of many years and there is good material available on the subject. But Gann’s skill was to reduce many of these techniques into a simple form which anyone can comprehend.

Those who study his works from this perspective will find a rich vein of practical knowledge which can be applied immediately to market analysis and trading.