Gann Management, IDS. Where are you?

sharks, vipers, scorpions

It was a Cottage Industry, a family set up, and had the nerve to charge it's clients around £4000 per year.

What did clients get for their money?

Unsubstantiated but nice stories about WD Gann and how he supposedly made a fortune in the markets.

Data and a program to spot double, triple tops, bottoms and 50% retracements.

I warned my friend but unfortunately for her she didn't listen and was even more upset when I showed her that my Dynamic Trader program could do everything her more expensive software could do and more.

I only paid $800 for DT, which I still today, her software rental evaporated many years ago along with her £4000.
 
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is it a planet, iceberg, mountain, no it's Fred Stafford.

Confession time, after my friend got "Had Over" I did one of their seminars.

My first and last impressions of Fred Stafford was a rather bloated, portly, middle aged person, whom easily by even the most casual of glances was well on his way to Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and any other number of age related health problems that afflict those overly glutinous individuals who’s eyes are bigger than their gigantic bellies and just can’t resist that second, third or fourth helping of calorie dense junk food.

The circumference of his waist was approaching that of a small planet and his daily calorie consumption far exceeded that of a small African nation!

Just to wash his under pants alone would require an industrial size washing machine and a fair many kilo’s of extra strength washing powder.

Not only that, Fred the Gut enjoyed centre stage and enjoyed the sound of his own voice as much as he enjoyed a good blow out.

The attendees were subjected to tale after tale of how, supposedly WD Gann made a fortune from the markets, but never once did Fred the Belly provide any evidence that he and side kick, the Slippery as a Bucket of Eels Tony Zafar could do the same or even out perform a buy and hold method or that they even traded in the first place!

I asked Ever Ready for a Meal Freddy for a copy of his brokers statements, which he replied he only shared that information with fee paying clients,
Oh dear, first red flag.

Freddy, the Nightmare on Food St, must have got spooked when I suggested that in the contract he make the undertaking that all his trades from inception would be made available to me direct from his brokers office.

No surprise then when I tell you that never materialized.
OMG, Second red flag.

That was enough for me, you see it’s easy to spot a fake from the real deal.

You never get to meet the real deals simply because they are to busy trading and enjoying the fruits of their profits.

Do you really think an over the top profitable trader is going to share their secrets.

If you do, then I have some land I can sell you at a knock down price!
 
Gann Experts, no way!

From a small kid I grew up with Gann, Great,Great Grandad was well into all that stuff, we have the complete range of Gann books and first editions to. Must be worth a shilling or two these day's.

I remember at around 5 years of age looking at a Gann chart with all those lines and angles.

The bottom line is there's no need to hand over any money to these so called Gann experts, they don't know anymore about Gann than you will once you've read his books.

Quick summary.

Gann wrote... you can make a fortune with this rule. The half way point.

There are 2 half way points.

Gann also wrote that you can beat the market trading the 45% angle...there are 2 types of 45% angles.

That's it, now you know as much as any so called Gann expert on the planet!

Keep your money out of their pockets.
 
it's a trend following system

It was a good job I managed to get a meal or two out of it.

That was the up side of the Fred Stafford seminar, I would have be well miffed off otherwise!

Some amusing things were listening to all the nonsense bellowing forth and not only from Stafford but also from his little army of helpers. Pity they could'nt get their stories straight.

Gary Stafford was a punk kid back then and Fred had him in trying to explain to the audience Gann's theory of 1 unit of time equals 1 unit of price.

What a load of tosh, he didn't have the first idea, I mean, ask the question, what was 1 unit of price in 1929 for the DJIA and what is it now?

All I got was that's a good question and I'll get to that later. You guessed it, later never came!

I thought it was hilarious just how many people bought into this tosh but then I had a good advantage over most.

In Gann's own words, "you will make the most money trading with the main trend".

Good Grief, so that means people are sploshing out £4000 for a TREND FOLLOWING SYSTEM. I take it they've never heard of Nick Darvas or the Turtles, can get those system's for free.

Naivety can be expensive.
 
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Hi

It is some time since I visited the T2W forum...
I was doing a online search for Gann Management and came across this thread.
It seems the Company dissolved in 2016 , and ther is a few websites like Companies house that give some details of the company background etc and their disolvement..
But I am unable to find any actually information as to why its dissolved.

I found refs to FSA and FCA at https://www.fca.org.uk/
and on speaking with them... they said that not have information as to why the company may had dissolved.

I Know Fred Stafford who set it up would have probably retired and I believed he passed it on to his son Gary Stafford.

Other than they sold an educational and software service on Gann and Trading education..along with renting out their software.

From what I recall they also traded some of their own clients money and also had some large organisations that they traded some funds for.Inc from what I can recall some Banks or Financial institutions , other businesses etc..

So I wonder why I cannot find any information that explains the real reason why they dissolved their business.

No doubt many will have variable opinions on what they offered...some will say what they taught was too basic for most members of the public to succeed.. which I think now I may agree.. but some things they taught may seem to have been valid for some parts to it..IMO... As I do believe some of their methods can aid to pick out turning points in the Markets.
Some of their Gann % methods at least at some stages that tried to research seemed to have some valid merit..
BUT It was hard to easily apply consistently.

What I believe that they should have also offered or been able to discover and teach clients was also Gann's
use of his Time Cycles. So that Clients could also use Time analysis to back up with the Price analysis.

They show some of the Gann Timing ideas and had some options on their software related to Time if I recall..
BUT they DID NOT show very much to demonstrating or using it.

But there is a LOT more to trading than what they taught..

I just wonder if anyone else may be aware of what happened and why they dissolved.

Could it have been that after 2007 to 2009 crash... that they struggled to find clients as many people would interested in such things could have lost money../ jobs etc or be hard up..
 
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All the info you require https://www.thegazette.co.uk/company/02069317

tldr
voluntary liquidation due to creditors and having f all in the bank

Capture42.PNG
 
Thks for your reply Lightning McQ,

I did come across that website and had noted it appeared as if they had little , if any funds..

But they had been in Business I think initially under another name IDS from 1986 and it lasted to 2016...
Maybe worth noting that 2016 was 7 years after the 2007 to 2009 crash....

so had I wonder if they had traded any money for their clients funds during the time of the crash ... IF They had failed to close their long positions out or short the market big time..or both, ...or maybe they would not be willing to risk shorting a fund heavily even if they suspected a decline..

I think a lot of people loose interest in investments and trading after a huge crash or after or during a severe financial crisis. I mean you do not get as many people on forums any more as to what they were at one time.

Fred Stafford had been calling for a crash prior to the year 2000... but I am not sure what he was considering one to occur into 2007.

So I am not sure if all their problems or reasons to end their business or allow it to become dissolved has been down to problems along that line ; But maybe if after Fred retired, that Gary or anyone else did not want to continue with it..

There were a few other people involved over some years who resigned who were classed as Secretaries, There maybe one who maybe seeming to be a type of hidden partner..David Barrett , although he is not shown as being resigned
but I not really sure what his involvement was or to what degree.

Looking at Companies House it seems to suggest Gary had resigned in year 2000 and Fred resigned in 2008.
Then there is a mention of Gary, that does not give any resign date so I wonder if he was reappointed.
or it just refers to him as technical director.

Then the last date shown was the resignation of Tony Zafar in 2014...
So I wonder if Tony had been given an ownership role..
I think he had been with them several years. and I think was their main trainer.

 
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