Cowan could be the reincarnation of W.D. Gann?

[Baha]

Yes, you read it right!

I was blown by this when I first read it. Cowan really looks like Gann when you look at their pictures side by side. This article talks about Baumring, Cowan and Gann.

Honestly, I don't know how to react to this. All I can say that the article is interesting and somewhat entertaining.
I decided to post this topic as a house warming for the new forum.

here is the link
http://divinecosmos.com/start-here/book ... k-constant

[earik]

Interesting article... Back when I first got interested in markets, stuff like this got me totally excited. Now, 20+ years later, after reading a couple hundred Gann-style sales letters from trading vendors, I have a different (and unfortunately more cynical) reaction, which can be summed up in two points:

1) Why is it that people who aren't actually Masons are so quick to proclaim what the Masons' secrets are? If they're secret, and only available to the inner workings of the Masons, how does the guy on the fringe have a perfect working knowledge of it all? Atlantean knowledge passed through the inner circles of the Masons, down to Gann, who then used it to solve the stock market? Any real Mason will tell you that there's a huge difference between secrecy and privacy, and that if the "secrets" were made completely public, it would be pretty clear that none of the rule-the-world/Atlantis/Illuminati/etc comments are very accurate.

2) Why is it that a guy who doesn't trade, and doesn't really understand markets, thinks it's OK to photocopy a couple cool charts from a trading book and declare the stock market "solved"? I've studied most of Cowan's stuff, as I'm sure almost everyone else here has. It's very interesting material, and worth reading, but to be perfectly honest, I don't use it in my own trading, and I don't know anyone else who does either. If it's the perfect solution to markets, why aren't we all retired and living on private islands after going through his books and never taking a losing trade because of it? The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and there's a big difference between going back over historical charts and explaining how it all works, compared to forecasting future turning points in the real world where the outcomes are less certain, and there is actual money at risk.

So if the author is sloppy with the Masonic part, and sloppy with the trading part, it means he's probably sloppy with all the rest of it too! LOL.

Anyway, not trying to be a grouch. I've just found that the best traders and the conspiracy theorists tend to live in two completely separate, and non-intersecting circles.

Regards,

Earik

[Baha]

Thanks for the reply Earik. Always appreciate your comments !!
I have to agree with your points. I have been interested in the markets for 3 years now.Therefore, my excitement threshold is much much lower.
Initially, I felt that the article was entertaining but then I thought maybe I should be more selective with the content that I post since this is a new platform. and maybe we should aim to increase the content quality here because we can, since it is not a public forum anymore and I am very content to be a part of it. Thanks again

[Simon.B]

Hi Baha,

I'm afraid I am a little more cynical than Earik..LOL.

Yes, we have lots of proof that Gann did extensive research in Markets, but when it comes to actually applying that research to trading suddenly all of that is a secret and written in veil language which Gann became famous for. Over the years lots of his courses, charts and research was found, but not
much of actual proof of profitable trading. The most famous one being his incredible 30 day track record witnessed by "Ticker Tape" interview. But even here, assuming that everything is a fact, amount of trades Gann did during that month amounts to over 10 trades per day, now that may make him a good trader, but unlikely he was able to use all that extensive research for any of those trades with so little time to spare for each one. Witnesses say that Gann would come to the floor during that month with nothing but a small piece of paper in his hand. What we mostly find since Gann's death is his promotional material. He had a few different business names under which he would promote and sell his material, and even though he made some very good predictions over the years, and not only in the stock market, it seems that for the lack of well documented trading record one can only assume that Gann made most of his money by charging "crazy" money, for that time, for his courses and subscriptions.

The only approach we can successfully use in our own trading is the one we created our self. We can take little bits and pieces from material of others, but for the most part it has to be our "baby", there is just no other way. None of the material Gann wrote about is quantifiable, and we can only execute every single time without hesitation a method which has proven to have positive expected outcome. And everything else simply makes for interesting read sometimes.

Best,

[Baha]

Thanks for the reply Simon.
I see what you mean.

[earik]

I remember back when I first found Gann and started learning about him, I thought that it all sounded really interesting, but it was also very obvious that if I were ever going to get to the bottom of Gann and all those coded books he wrote, it might take me 20 years of researching to do it (and there was no guarantee that I'd actually find anything). So I decided that if I were going to put that amount of time and energy into trading, I'd be much better off focusing on markets myself and coming up with my own solutions. Now that I'm on the other end of that 20 years, I'm very glad I chose the path less traveled, especially after meeting a few of the other traders out there that went the other way and basically became Gann historians (but unfortunately not profitable traders).

I like Gann, and I resonate to a lot of what he was doing, however:

1) Not all of his forecasts were correct. Many were completely wrong.
2) When he died, he had $100k in the bank. Not bad for those days, but not $50M either.
3) His son, who is still alive, said that Gann couldn't trade, and made all of his money selling his courses.

The Gann traders explain the second two points away using what amounts to conspiracy theory, and unfortunately there's really no way to know the truth in this particular case since Gann isn't with us anymore. The nail in the coffin on my end happened a few years back when I was going through his mechanical system on US steel, which he published in one of his courses. He gives very definite rules on how to enter, and goes through a bunch of trades doing a backtest. His numbers are insane, and he ends up quadrupling his account in a few months or so. Anyway, I took that exact same method, and applied it to modern stocks (US Steel is still on the boards), and my results in modern markets were pretty horrible.

Gann may have been an awesome trader, but markets back then were different. If you look at old futures charts from around the early 1900's, you see these huge swings, and I think you could make money just going with the flow for the most part. Modern markets don't look like that anymore. Now we've got chop and weird sideways moves, and all sorts of difficulties. A system that may have worked back in the early 1900's doesn't work so well anymore, and if that's the case, it says a lot about all the rest of the tools as well...

Anyway, my point is - if you're going to study someone, why not study some of the awesome modern traders? You won't find anyone making crazy predictions, or getting 98% accuracy, but you will find traders who have taken 100's of millions of profit out of markets, and who are relatively open in discussing how they did it. There are no legends to sift through, or codes to crack, or misdirection to have to overcome either, and those people are alive and well today. It's not nearly as romantic as solving Gann, and becoming master of the universe, but that's also much more of a fantasy than a reality if you really think about it...

All for now,

Earik

[Simon.B]

Well said Earik.

There is a lot to be said for how different Markets are from away back then, or even from 20 years ago for that matter.
A few of my friends were floor traders back in the 80's, one traded Bonds and the other Soybeans. At that time simply by being on the floor
semi decent traders could make a good living by front running or leaning on paper, Markets were nothing like today. The Bond
trader friend of mine still trades electronically now, he is profitable, but does make nearly the kind of money he was making on the floor, and on top
of that it took him six or seven years to make adjustment from floor to electronic trading.

We have to realize what floor trading really was back then, it had nothing to do with picking direction, or using indicators and systems, those guys
simply exploited the edge they had by just being right there. Pits were large with close to a thousand traders there, he used to tell me that
when trading became active, you could see right side of the pit bidding 25 and left side offering 22 ....good old days.

Not trying to take anything away from Gann....but years ago I also decided not to spend countless years trying to figure out his "secrets"....never
regretted my decision either.

Best,

[NDscorpini]

Hi All,
I pretty much agree with everything that has been said here. I don't try to trade exactly like Gann BUT...I do try to use the same principles. I have been writing a paper about how I got to my current methodology and here is a small snippet.

Natural Law
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ezz0AeC9vc
Part 2 (57 min, 53 seconds)
1. The principle of Mentalism
2. The principle of Correspondence
3. The principle of Vibration
4. The principle of Polarity
5. The principle of Rhythm
6. The principle of Cause and Effect
7. The principle of Gender

Best wishes,
NDscorpini