There’s a lot of money involved in markets. Trillions of dollars swirl about every day. Traders are buying and selling. Hedge funds taking positions. And today even government and institutional banks get involved. (And the US bond market is even bigger than its stock market.)
I’m best known for all my real estate cycles work. But actually, trading is my passion.
And for today, this brings us to W.D. Gann. He’s the world’s best market analyst and trader you’ve probably never heard of.
Mr Gann looked at stock market charts different to anyone else before him – and probably also for most who have followed.
A stock chart has two axis: time and price.
Mr Gann discovered that what you can do for price, you can also do for time.
And it’s revelatory, I can tell you.
Thousands of people before him – and after him – have been looking at charts. Gann may be the only trader ever to have asked himself something like:
“I wonder if ‘time’ means anything in the market to do with a chart, and not just the price?”
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In 1927, Mr Gann published a rather peculiar book. He titled it ‘The Tunnel Thru the Air, Or, Looking Back from 1940’. All his other books were clearly about trading techniques and tactics. This was a bit different.
(Much of Gann’s prior published works are now kept at the Lambert-Gann website, run by Cody Jones. I encourage you to visit this site at some point if you have not already done so.)
Anyway, 1927’s Tunnel Thru the Air described difficult times ahead for the US, and a future war looming.
The start of the war Gann describes this way (page 278):
“The United States Government fearing that Japan would make the first attack on the Pacific Coast either around Los Angeles or San Francisco, rushed the battle fleet to the Pacific. This proved to be one of the greatest mistakes of the war.
As soon as the battleships cruised into the Pacific, Japan attacked from the air with their noiseless airplanes and began dropping deadly bombs from great heights. The anti-aircraft guns from the decks of the battleships were powerless to reach the bombing planes at such great heights.
Defeat was swift and severe and only a few of the battleships escaped complete destruction from the first attack.”
Remember, ‘Tunnel’ came out in 1927.
The book also lists 1930–32, and then 1940–44, as the most difficult years the US will ever face. That’s on pages 82–84. The page numbers tell you one reason why Gann could forecast this successfully.
(The same repeat is due for the late 2020s by the way.)
Fire and war came to Chicago on 3 October 1931, closing the exchanges and trading (page 320).
As it subsequently happened, US markets did see actual panic on this day, in 1931. Though, in reality, this was part of the real estate market collapse that lead to the Great Depression.
The US exchanges banned short selling on this day – October 3 1931 – but in the end they chose to stay open as the panic selling raged on.
There’s a lot more I could tell you about Mr Gann’s astounding forecasts in this book.
But it’s what Gann had to say on page 69 of ‘Tunnel’ that really opened my eyes to what’s possible. And it can for you too.
It’s best to start there.
The passage, on page 69 — again, the page number being half a clue probably — is this. Gann quotes Matthew 12: 38, 39 and 40.
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Gann then writes:
“I believe there was a secret meaning in what he said; that the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. I believe that a man who understands the meaning of that has all the power under heaven and earth, as the Bible says he shall have. I believe that that is the key to the interpretation of the future. I am sure I have found it and know how to apply it.”
On December 25, the sun, having been still for three days, and having just died ‘on the cross’, moves one degree back north.
This annual event, forgotten today, is captured rather neatly in a video put out a few years back. The video is called ‘Zeitgeist’.
I recommend that you view it.
Unfortunately, it’s part of a larger sequence that the authors portray as a bit of conspiracy theory. In suggesting you watch this video, I do NOT, in any way, subscribe to such.
But it’s an elegant few minutes of what the sun does each year. This is how you can ‘crack’ the further secrets to time that are in the Bible, and what Mr Gann uses for his ‘Tunnel’ book.
That video you can watch here.
At this particular link, I’d start from about the 4-minute mark and then watch for the next 15 minutes or so.
Again, I do not subscribe to anything else that is in this video series. It’s just an elegant few minutes of what the sun does each year, that’s all I would ask you to consider.
If you want to start your ‘time’ journey, then make an effort to understand what the sun does on 25 December every year. It’s another way to view the world.
It’s what we do over at Boom Bust Bulletin.
For the price of just a cup of coffee each week, it’s where you can really start your ‘time’ journey and unlock for yourself how the future unfolds, before it happens. That’s here.
Best wishes
Phil Anderson
and your Property Share Market Economics team.