During the 1909 “The Ticker and Investment Digest” interview, W.D. Gann made a notable reference to the financial historian Henry Hall and his book published earlier in the year titled “How Money Is Made in Security Investments.”
Gann commented, “Mr. Henry Hall, in his recent book devoted much space to cycles of prosperity and depression which he found recurring at regular intervals of time.”
In this blog post I will show you three examples of where W.D. Gann used Henry Hall’s book “How Money Is Made in Security Investments” to make three predictions.
One prediction was in his novel “The Tunnel Thru the Air” written in 1927 and the other two in his annual forecasts for 1929 and 1932.
All three examples are found on page 78 of the Henry Hall book.
On page 78 of “The Tunnel Thru the Air” Gann wrote about predicting the future based on the past repeating and used phrases such as:
“…..became popular again is another proof of history repeating itself and shows, there is no new thing under sun, but that we simply resurrect the old ones.”
“How do I forecast future cycles?” you may ask.
“Time is the great factor that proves all things.”
This example from the 1929 forecast is of W.D. Gann using the 60 year cycle.
W.D. Gann forecast a Dow high for 1929 on August 7-8.
The bull market started on August 8, 1896 [The actual high was September 3rd 1929] for the Dow Forecast Gann wrote:
SEPTEMBER 1929
One of the sharpest declines of the year is indicated. There will be loss of confidence by investors and the public will try to get out after it is too late.
A “Black Friday” is indicated and a panicky decline is stocks with only small rallies.
From page 78 of the Henry Hall book:
1: “Black Friday panic, September 20 forward, 1869, caused by a corner in gold, sent stocks tumbling led by a decline in gold from $162 1/2 to $133.”
W.D. Gann used the great Chicago Fire to make a prediction in “The Tunnel Thru the Air”.
Henry Hall, page 78.
“On Sunday evening October 8, 1871 a fire broke out that burned until October 10 leaving complete devastation in the heart of the city of Chicago.”
In “The Tunnel Thru the Air” on page 320, Gann wrote;
“When the sun rose over the greaty city of Chicago on the morning of October 3 (1931) buildings were smouldering in ruins in every direction it was the greatest destruction that had ever been in the history of the world.”
The apparent misprint of the word great to greaty certainly suggests a fireplace and the fictional devastation of Chicago in “The Tunnel Thru the Air” occurs within days of the anniversary of the 60 year cycle.
Another example from page 78 can be found in W.D. Gann’s annual forecast for 1932.
Also on page 78 Hall wrote:
“Corners were engineered, one after another; and there were three on one day, September 17, 1872, yet remembered as the “day of three corners” While the trend of stocks was downward, business remained in a healthy condition.”
Gann using another complementary cycle had already predicted the 1932 low and was not expecting a bear market but he turned to Henry Halls historical records to get an indication of the tone of the market from 60 years earlier.
September 17, 1872, yet remembered as the “day of three corners” this reads “high activity” to me and is echoed in Gann’s annual forecast for 1932:
The later part of June, August and September are the most active and bullish months of the year when sharp advances will be recorded. First extreme high is indicated around September 21 – 22 when stocks should make extreme high for the year.
The “Ticker and Investment Digest” interview was published in 1909 and the crash of 1869 was already 40 years in the past, yet Gann specifically mentioned the Henry Hall book and was able to turn the events summarised on that one page into forecasts twenty or more years later.
The past does not repeat every 60 years like clockwork there are certain conditions that need to be in place to activate all the major time cycles such as the 20, 60, 90, and 100 year cycles.
Henry Hall’s original book, How Money Is Made in Security Investments is available for download in multiple formats from the following link.
https://archive.org/details/howmoneyismadein00hallrich/page/n10/mode/2up
