The rules and secret advice of the profoundly influential but deeply eccentric financial trader William Delbert Gann (1878-1955), best remembered for his dubious investment practices centred around ideas drawn from nebulous sources such as from geometry, astronomy, astrology, and ancient mathematics.
‘Structured around his ‘24 never failing rules’ for trading (including ‘When in doubt–get out, and don’t get in’ and ‘Do not buck the trend’), Gann applies sense and experience to the investing process. He insists that ‘the most precious possession is time–the time to secure knowledge which is more valuable than money’ (Dennistoun).
‘W.D. Gann’s works are subject to much controversy. True believers abound and still follow many of his arcane methods of forecasting, which emphasise timing, rather than price or volume, cycles, vibrations, geometric angles, and in his novel, The Tunnel Thru the Air, biblical prophesies. What is evident is that, in certain circles, his work and life are as much revered today as they were fifty or more years ago’ (Dennistoun).
Many of Gann’s works were self-published and are consequently not always bibliographically straight forward. The present first edition of 45 Years in Wall Street was issued with a reprint of Gann’s earlier work New Stock Trend Detector, originally published in 1936, bound at the rear. The two titles are advertised on the rear panel of the dust jacket as ‘Bound in one volume Price $10.00’. The present copy is a presumed later issue with a printed slip of paper bearing a new imprint of ‘Miami, Florida; Lambert-Gann Publishing Co., Inc.’ pasted to the title page over the original imprint of ‘Miami, Florida; W. D. Gann, Publisher’.
Dennistoun, Bubbles, Booms and Busts, 378.
