📖William Gann
Risk-First Approach
Consider the downside before the upside.
Before considering how much you can make, consider how much you can lose. Risk management is not about avoiding risk entirely, but about understanding and controlling it.
🏠 Everyday Analogy
📖 Core Interpretation
W.D. Gann treats survival as the first objective. Limiting permanent capital loss, controlling leverage, and avoiding single-point failure are prerequisites for long-term compounding.
💎 Key Insight:Risk management is about understanding, not avoidance.
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❓ Why It Matters
A single large drawdown can erase years of progress. Risk control is not timidity; it is the operating system that keeps compounding alive.
🎯 How to Practice
Define downside scenarios before entry, cap position size, avoid fragile leverage, and maintain liquidity so mistakes remain survivable.
⚠️ Common Pitfalls
Equating volatility with all forms of risk
Oversized positions without an exit plan
Using leverage to compensate for uncertainty
📚 Case Studies
1
Cycle Repetition and Crash (1987)
Studying Gann’s time counts and seasonal patterns, an investor anticipated heightened risk around October 1987.
✨ Outcome:Bought protective puts and trimmed leveraged positions before Black Monday, limiting portfolio losses and reallocating into undervalued blue chips afterward.
2
Pre-Crash Market Timing (1929)
Gann applied his Price and Time Square to forecast the 1929 top in U.S. stocks, identifying price-time resistance in major industrials.
✨ Outcome:He reduced long positions before the crash, preserving capital and later buying at lower prices.
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