Answer:

My answer to this question, sent in by Karun Verma, may jar some of you. During the first five years of my career, I spent a great deal of time studying concepts presented by W.D. Gann. I read his books - most of which were poorly written and organized - and tried to apply the ideas in real time. At first, the process appeared promising, interesting and challenging, but ultimately unfruitful. By far the most useless and illogical Gann concept is that of "Fan Lines." Moving up at a "45 degree angle" is different (for the same market) depending on the time and price scale employed, even if using the same Daily, Weekly or Monthly bar chart in each instance.

It wasn’t until many years later, after wasting at least half a decade studying the concepts, that I realized the problem with Gann’s work. Nearly all of his techniques produce a plethora of potential outcomes, but leave no certainty. Therefore, instead of narrowing down possibilities, his techniques increase the number of possibilities, preventing one from arriving at any logical or rational game plan for trading.

All good trading techniques must first focus on risk management and risk reduction, then stop movement and lastly position liquidation. No such process is clearly or logically spelled out with any of the Gann techniques I’m familiar with except his Swing Trading process. After 5+ years studying Gann, the only thing I came away with was an upgraded approach for following market advances and declines (based on Swing Trading). This new process I call the MotionLine and is a crucial part of my new NEELY RIVER trading technology, which I teach in my private trading classes.