Johannes Sundberg - The Secret Science of Squaring Introduction

W. D. Gann’s Lost System of Astro-Geometric Market Forecasting

 

“One morning, I was standing in the shower, preparing to go to work with a blank mind, still not really awake. Suddenly, I just felt a sudden flash, an idea: “Why do you not try to apply the squares this way?” I felt overwhelmed, it was a powerful experience! I had to rush to work, but the first thing I did when I got home again was to turn on my computer. I immediately knew that this must have been the real method that Gann had disguised so elegantly. And I had discovered it on my own… or with the help of some angel that whispered it into my ear that morning in the shower…” - Johannes Sundberg

 

Intent of Course

Johannes Sundberg's The Secret Science of Squaring: W. D. Gann’s Lost Science of Market Forecasting develops a series of major insights within the field of W. D. Gann’s astronomical and geometrical market forecasting techniques. Sundberg has rediscovered an approach to the application Gann's of astro-geometric price/time conversion and projection principles which operates to square price and time on market charts using Gann’s ingenious technique to integrate astronomical timing and planetary geometry right into Gann’s geometrical chart structure. Sundberg’s insights explain many mysterious and confusing elements of Gann, which only become clear when you understand these applications.

Sundberg’s methodology uses these astro-geometric techniques to project high-probability trade setups where we will expect good risk:reward ratio (3:1 min) trading signals which can easily be used for profitable position trading. Projections are generally accurate to the day, though occasionally will fall a day or two out, with trades running from several days to several weeks, and even months at times. Once a critical trade setup is identified, two astro-geometric confirmation filters are applied to determine whether the trade is “square in price and time”. Square trades have a success rate of approximately an 80%, producing consistent trading profits in any kind of market.

Introduction

One of the greatest joys in my work as a publisher is when a long-time client comes to us with their own individual research and breakthroughs that they would like to contribute to the field. This is the case of the current author, Johannes Sundberg’s, who originally purchased some Ferrera works from Sacred Science Institute all the way back around the turn of the century. I have probably read just about every good book on Gann that has ever been written, am always overjoyed when I come across something that is bursting with fresh, new ideas and insights, even when addressing subjects that have been explored to a lesser degree by a few scholars over the decades.

It wasn’t until 2019, in response to our release of Sean Erikson’s Trading with Selene’s Chariot, that Sundberg wrote to me personally telling me of some fascinating discoveries that he had made some years back that were so powerful they literally scared him, such that he put them away for some years before daring to explore their profound implications. With Johannes’ permission, I will quote a little from his first communication, as it is so interesting:

I have been in the field of technical analysis for 20 years and stumbled upon Gann in the late 90´s. After quite an intense research period in the early 2000´s, I stood in the shower one morning and suddenly just heard: "Why do not you try it this way?" I did try it the same evening and to my great surprise it worked! I was able to forecast the market months and even years in advance to the exact day!

I have developed this system which builds on astro and mathematics and now have 5 sets of strategies developed from this original idea and they all work quite well. I have also created systems for calculating future support and resistance and it is fantastic to see how beautifully the prices bounce off these levels. I pinpointed the low in 2009 after the financial crisis to the exact day.

I am 100% convinced that these methods were used by Gann. I am sure that he had more tools than this in his toolbox, but these strategies are nevertheless a standalone profitable trading system.

When I first discovered this method, it was just too much. I had to put it away, it was more than I could handle. After that, I have taken up the work from time to time and for the last year more seriously.

I have been thinking about what to do with this knowledge? It is sensitive, it is explosive…

That knowledge you now hold in your hands… after two years of slow but steady explanation, detailed elaboration, and extensive illustration, Sundberg’s insight from the shower now stands as this technical manual on astro-geometric forecasting and trading, inspired by and based upon original insights discovered but well-hidden by the great Market Master, W. D. Gann.

As to the aforementioned insights, clearly such an introduction would capture anyone’s attention, and even more so a lifetime Gann researcher and publisher. What are these fascinating insights that are so juicy even Sundberg had to take time to approach them? These insights crack into a branch of Gann Theory that I personally have always found to be overly complex and difficult to intellectually grasp and visualize. This branch centers around the principle of planetary time, or time-by-degrees as it is also called, and the manipulation of such time so as to project the future.

Everybody understands the principle of 360° being the measure of the circle which any orbit of any body revolving around an axis completes upon one full revolution. Our planet takes 365¼ days to go 360° around the sun in what we call 1-year, Earth time. So does every other body in our solar system follow the same rule in defining the period of its orbit, and similarly do the relationships of two planets to each other come back together at the 360° conjunction of their “synodic cycle” according to different time variables for each pair. These relationships are less commonly known outside the realm of cycle analysts or celestial mechanics.

However, the one thing that does not usually consciously register to most people is that all our references to time are based upon the motions of the Earth and the calendar that we Earth-dwelling humans have derived from such motions. Even when referring to celestial bodies that are not bound by Earth time, we still refer to them too by measures of Earth time, thereby limiting our perception of “true” time as defined by any individual object itself and its own motion.

This perception was something that Gann was the first to recognize and to redefine according to the true nature of each individual phenomenon itself, so that each planet, rather than being measured in Earth time, is instead measured in units of its own motion, planetary degrees of longitudinal movement, thereby allowing time to be defined by the perspective and motion of the observer, in this case any individual planet under consideration.

The genius of W. D. Gann was in his ability to reframe perspectives, and in so doing, perceive patterns and relationships that would otherwise be invisible to a normal observer. He was the first to divide price scales into harmonic frequencies, his 8ths and 3rds and octave retracements demonstrating the musical patterning upon which the market scaffolding is clearly structured.

His geometrical angles define the angles of attack or slope a different market impulses or trends which are directly associated with energetic properties defining the power or weakness of an impulse vector initiated at a turning point in the market. Such analysis brought the first traces of quantitative science to a subject still considered to be, if not totally random, too qualitative to be scientifically quantified, at least according to “academics”, “economists”, and other such armchair theoreticians.

But traders are quite different beasts! “Whatever works!” is their dictum, and Gann’s tools have been proven for more than a century to work like no other market technology, with the caveat:

in the hands of a proficient Gann technician…

Unfortunately, there are not so many “proficient Gann technicians” out there, and even fewer who are willing to share their hard-earned wisdom with the public. Thus, we are quite fortunate to have the opportunity to gain access to the tried-and-true trading techniques of a proficient Gann technician. One who is not only willing to share his professional expertise with us, but who has taken the time and effort to present his work with the clarity and solidity of a scientific thesis.

W. D. Gann's True Methods of Astro-Geometry

Sundberg’s intention in this course is not just to revivify a collection of Gann’s forgotten astro-trading techniques for a new generation of Gann analysts to profit from, but more so to demonstrate the absolute validity of this Theory of Celestial Influence, as it has been called. If we were to pander to the academic establishment, who would surely balk at the term “influence”, perhaps we could tone it down slightly to the Theory of Celestial Correlation, though that doesn’t have quite the ring to it. Perhaps we could compromise with the ancient’s term, The Doctrine of Correspondences.

Call it what you will, the purpose of this book is no to theorize about it but to actually USE it! Aside from my introduction, this is not a theoretical work at all. In fact, there is almost no foundational teaching on planets, astronomy, astrology, geometry or even Gann, really. The principles and techniques are so straight forward that they do not require any complex or prerequisite understanding of these subjects. What you don’t know, you can either look up to better understand, or just do the calculations without understanding and it will work just as well.

Further, there is absolutely NO astrology in this work as the subject is understood today. While these are astro-geometric techniques, they are purely astronomical, geometrical, and mathematical, and do not have any kind of association with what would be called “astrology” whatsoever! Sundberg does not make any horoscopes or track any planets through “houses” or read the energy of any “signs” to determine their “qualities” or “influences”. Square angles are not “bad” and trine angles “good”, nor are there other such qualitative designations in this work.

No, this is not that kind of “astrology”, and though Gann did also mess with some of that sort of analysis, that is not where the foundations or mechanics of this system lie! This system is better characterized by the term celestial mechanics, meaning the mechanical motions and dynamic interactions between the celestial objects that orbit our Sun, along with all forces and energies existent within our Solar System (sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, meteors, solar wind, plasma, energy, radiation, light, electromagnetic energy, etc.) but also coming from without as we move through deep cosmic space at speeds approaching fractions of the speed of light…

While celestial mechanics best defines the system we are operating within, astro-geometry better identifies the system of dynamic geometric relationships between celestial bodies as they progress through their individual planetary motion while simultaneously relating to secondary objects ranging from planets to their own satellites, to the Sun guiding them through the cosmos.

Gann’s methodology focuses upon the motions of these bodies and the mathematical relationships defining how these objects interact with each other to create (or somehow correlate with) an order or synergy within the markets. There is something almost haunting about these unusual relationships between price and time, so much so that anybody would find something “magical” behind them, the kind of magic that magic squares or mathematical puzzles exhibit, as so much of Gann’s work tends to have, which is what attracts many of us to it.

This astro-geometry looks like what we all see as typical Gann geometry with angle fans, trend lines, crossing zero-degree angles, sequential cycle projections, individual cycle projections and many things that any Gann analyst will be familiar with. What is different is the shifted perspective, first of translating to planetary time and then of mathematically orientating all the geometric tools on the chart to that that active astro-geometry. The uninitiated may look at Sundberg’s chart and see nothing beyond an ordinary Gann style chart, but the initiated will see something more that is encoded into these lines when seen astro-geometrically.

What is particularly handy about this point is that since the chart geometry is set according to the active planetary geometry, there is never any need to square one’s charts. The adjustment is made in the setting of the tools to correlate with the planetary geometry so that the chart tools square to the chart rather than the chart to the tools, as is common practice. This makes for considerably easier application of the tools and allows for the use of hand drawn charts or charting software that changes the x/y-axis relationship, usually such a problem for Gann’s geometric techniques.

After revealing Gann’s ingenious method of mapping planetary time to the geometry of our charts, Sundberg applies an unusual intellectual dexterity in interpreting and manipulating Gann’s unique mathematical calculations implied by his cryptic references to the Circle, the Square and the Triangle. What does one do with such ideas to take them beyond mere intellectual ponderings in Natural Philosophy to meaningful applications in analysis and trading?

Sundberg illustrates how these structures serve to measure facets of the price/time geometry of the financial markets. But in order to do as Gann intended with such techniques, the price/time geometry must be planetarily orientated or else it is inactive and powerless. Principles such as the “squaring of price and time” define astro-geometric power points where the coalescence of planetary energies peaks or troughs and the market rebounds with energetic charge producing short, explosive moves or instigating longer consistent trends that are easily tradable.

Sundberg’s shower breakthrough led him to a creative discovery and application of Gann’s projection methodology which was “hidden in plain sight” using, as Gann explained it, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, as forms of advancing and declining at varying speeds and with varying relationships. Squaring is another such means of advancing and declining but with a different effect than these other methods. The combination of all these variables produces an output of high-quality trades setups such as Gann was famous for.

One begins to understand Gann’s cryptic references as relating to key variables in an algorithm which defines a moving system of objects, orbits and forces operating in vibratory resonance with one other and the market. It is a complex system of interrelating objects and energies in a constant state of flux, which at times brings certain points into sympathetic resonance activating key changes in the market. Determining where theses points of resonance will occur in advance and trading the best of them is the primary intention of this work.

It was this freedom of transformative mathematical thinking that led directly to Sundberg’s insight into this Secret Science of Squaring laying at the intersection of astronomy, geometry, mathematics and music, the great Pythagorean Quadrivium, the true 4 Liberal Arts, which lay at the foundation of the scientific knowledge of the Western world and form the basis of the original University systems of Pairs and Oxford.

This system of Traditional Cosmology, Cosmology being a term invented by Pythagoras to describe the logic or order of the cosmos, is exactly the kind of science that we are using in this work, and was well comprehended by the ancients, and encoded into their architectural and artistic time capsules preserving this advanced wisdom and technology for future seekers like W. D. Gann to decipher. This is an ancient science that has been around longer than recorded history itself, since it was first to document the 25,000-year cycle of the Precession of the Equinox, which the ancients supposedly learned through direct observation over 1000’s of years, one sign of movement of which takes a mere 2100 years.

This mysterious ancient system of universal knowledge was the source of Gann’s insight into this market wisdom, and now, after 20 years of labor as a professional investor and tireless researcher, Sundberg has come to unveil some of Gann’s secrets and to explain them in a way that is finally graspable and usable by a wider group of Gann analysts and traders.

Once you come to understand these calculations and relationships and how they truly operate, the simple pleasure of being able to project back and forth from major tops and bottoms in the past and into the future, often catching them to the exact day, even over many years, is a very intellectually satisfying exercise. But not nearly as satisfying as projecting a future trade setup, capturing the trade, and banking the profit in your trading account, which is the sincerest wish of the author and myself in your future endeavors… may your future trading pay for this course many times over using these brilliant techniques!

Style of Trading

The most amazing thing about this methodology is how simple it is to produce an endless array of excellent trade setups, on more or less whatever time frame you want to trade on, in whatever market you have always wanted to trade. It does not require the mastery of swing trading and complex analysis of a market’s technical structure.

The calculations and techniques taught here can be newly taken to a fresh market and within a few hours can generate a series of trade windows to check against the filters when they come up, and immediately begin generating high quality trade opportunities in the immediate future.

The trading style used is Position Trading, defined as the identification of significant high-probability trade setups with a minimum 1:3 risk:reward ratio, taking place within a time frame of several days to several weeks generally, though some trades may run for many months when a Major turning point is identified, and a significant trend begins. These techniques can also be used for day trading with some minor adjustments. The astro-geometric tools are used to project trade setups with superb risk:reward ratios to use for position trading. Sundberg explains the trading methodology as follows:

• This book presents a unique methodology showing how to puzzle together the different pieces that Gann left behind into to a workable trading methodology. Through this rethinking of the use of astro-geometry, we can generate superb trade set-ups with low risk and extremely attractive returns.
• The beauty of this method is that it is quite simple to understand and apply, and it is true Gann. Everyone who has read Gann’s courses and books will react: "Oh, that is what he meant! Could it really be that easy?" Gann hid what he really meant in plain sight. I think this understanding will advance many much further along in their Gann studies while also providing a clean and straight-forward trading strategy that they can profit from.”
• The real strength of the methods is the possibility of identifying trading setups with a high probability of success, a stop-loss level at a minimum distance, and a precise target price. The best trades are those where the target price is at a distance that is many multiples of the stop-loss distance. The methods.
• This work reveals some of Gann’s best hidden secrets, in particular, how to Square Price and Time in the proper way! It strives to build a solid base for interpreting Gann by showing step by step how the cosmological forces are translated into market prices every day. Since the paths of the cosmological forces are known and can be calculated ages in advance, so can we forecast the future just like the astronomer does.
• I am 100 % convinced that these methods were used by Gann. I am sure that he had more tools than this in his toolbox, but these strategies are nevertheless a standalone profitable system.

 

Key elements of Gann’s astro-geometric trading methodology:

• Once a critical trade setup is identified, when the market reaches that point, a set of astro-geometric filters are used to isolate “square trades”, which produce about an 80% success rate.
• Projections are generally accurate to the day, though occasionally will fall a day or two out.
• Trades run from several days to several weeks or even months.
• Powerful points in the market (tops & bottoms primarily) project future power points in the market via a number of variables and transformative functions that relate time to price in 3-dimensional space/time.
• The direct relationship of price and time at a key point is denominated by the principles of Squaring, so an entire science of space/time interrelationship can be defined by the conceptual framework of Squaring Price & Time.
• Squaring represents a sort of harmonic order that exists between the planets moving dynamically through space/time as mirrored quite beautifully in Gann’s brilliant schematic which plots planetary space onto a financial chart so that the heavens can be mapped and measured upon the Earth, or the motions of the cosmos mapped across the structure of the financial market.

When this is done properly a beautiful symbiotic relationship between planetary motion and market action can be clearly seen and plotted upon the financial chart as complex mathematical relationships of a multi-body system are simplified and modeled as simple geometric interactions on a 2-dimensioanl plane. Just as the temple of the Freemasons is a map of the cosmos, condensed and projected upon the ceiling of the temple, so within Gann’s system is the map of our solar system condensed down onto the geometry of our market chart. “As above, so below,” the Hermetic maxim, becomes physically manifest in our trading tools.

 

Customer Feedback

 

Simply BRILLIANT! And brilliantly simple! What a beautiful insight is all I can say! For SURE this is the lost stuff that Gann was really doing… Super deep stuff! Congratulations on your wonderful discovery! WS, San Francisco, CA

I don’t know if you remember, but two weeks ago you sent me a picture with Sunberg’s Angles on the SPY, and I rued how I missed out on the Planetary price reversals…. Well, I made sure I didn’t miss out on the latest one! Lol. (see attached pic, purple is yyyyyyy, the blue line is xxxxx-xxxxx from the 2020 February top, the green is xxxxx-xxxxx from the March bottom). So now I have some money to re-invest in my knowledge and I was wondering about Lorrie Bennett’s course series. AW, Newbury Park, CA

This is an Astro-trader's delight!!! Namaste! :-) :-) :-) Thank you so much for this! Raj, Peoria, AZ

OMG! Holy rat piss! This is crazy good stuff Brad!!! I'm only on page 66. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to get the Aug 2008 all time hi to square to some significant pivot... just went through the p 49 example.... very nice! I'm so excited, my hands are shaky and I can't type... TM, Cyprus, TX

In other news, for the first time yesterday I fully implemented Sundberg's stuff. I shorted SPY. It's working! I'll be damned.... just paid for my course! Not heading straight to Hell, but the fact is that it did work in every aspect. Very happy! MF, Nova Scotia

Clearly I should have bought the course earlier....LOL I hate to think of the trades I missed! Great work!!!! JD, Boise, Id
I'm almost done reading your Masterpiece. The information within is literally jaw-dropping. It does require lots of rereading and understanding, but the tools are simply amazing. The best application of Gann's astro stuff I've ever seen! RM, London, UK

Good grief... your 2 SPX Charts are "incredible".... Those planetary trendlines are "killer"... That sure does give incentive to really master these techniques as I have never seen anyting so accurate. There is no question that these are the elements that are controling the markets! Many thanks for sharing your knowledge... MD, New York, NY

I wanted to congratulate you on your amazing course and the breakthrough in knowledge that you achieved! It's truly a feat of a great mind to receive that divine insight while in the shower and then put it to work! I am now on my second reading and I have been using your techniques of squaring time and planetary angles, and the accuracy of predicting reverals is so high it knocks my socks off. I have to put the text down and walk around because the knowledge is so astounding.

I do hope you write a second book, I will be your first customer! Best, AVW Los Angeles, CA

Thanks for your charts and tips in this thread. Your course, writing style, knowledge and how you impart it is exceptional and makes me very grateful that I have come across this material that is indeed a journey in so many many ways. I must also thank Brad for finding and putting together such an immense collection of works. I have had your book for a while and had been delaying in writing anything because I was and am learning so many things week to week - not day to day because I am a slow learner - I still read a small part of the book and have to drop it and run around for a while.... and maybe come back to it a few days when my mind can handle more... The tips you give in the Forum made me notice things in the book which I had seen but not noticed earlier... Merry Christmas, Seasons greetings, to you , family and all here. SRJ, Andover, MA

 

Software

No special software is required to apply these tools, though some kind of astro/ephemeris software would be useful in projecting the cycles. Of course, you can just use a physical Ephemeris like Gann did. Excel is also excellent. The author does most of his calculations in MS Excel and does provide his own Excel Spreadsheet to course owners to calculate the squares and other functions. Sundberg used Optuma and Cycletimer when writing the book in order to provide illustrative charts, but neither have all the functions required.

We are currently in the process of having ALL of the tools for our TOP books programmed into 3 main software platforms: Wave59, Optuma and TradingView. The first two are the most advanced Gann and astro-analysis platforms available on the market and are companies with whom we have worked for over 2 decades each, and which the bulk of our Gann/astro clientele already own and use. As such, we focus on building tools in these platforms first, as we have programmers capable of building these tools most quickly in Wave59, and we work with the programming team at Optuma to build them for us, hence Optuma is a bit slower to complete our tools. NOTE: Sundberg also provides his own Excel calculators to do most of the work on square-outs required for Book 1, so having something that does Single Planet and Synodic Planetary angles is the other main thing needed for Book 1 applications.

TradingView is the newcomer platform in the group, which we have decided to see if we can also use as a competent platform for our advanced Gann and astro tools. It has some significant limitations compared to the more advanced platforms, Wave59 and Optuma, but it is massively cheaper, and has a multi-million person user base, so we are beginning our tool development here in the hope that this platform will continue to advance so as to allow us all the options we have on our higher-end platforms, while providing a significantly more affordable option for our clientele with more limited funds to invest in software. We would prefer it if they were able to invest less in software and more in books.  Let me provide a summary of where we are on each platform at this point (December 2023):

OPTUMA: At this point, Optuma has not yet even begun programming specific versions of Sundberg’s tools onto their platform, though they already have a number of built-in tools that will do many of the requirements or can be hacked to perform needed functions as follows:

Book 1: 1. Planetary Angle Fan for Single Planets. 2. Gann Square Marker & Gann Square Range Marker for square-outs. 3. Time by Planetary Degrees needed to calculate square-outs in Excel or manually. 4. Time by Synodic Degrees for calculating square-outs in Excel or manually. 5. Synodical Lines can be used to help draw Synodical Angles.

Book 2: 1. Time by Planetary Degrees can be used for projecting time octaves if time counts are calculated separately. 2. Planetary Fan can be combined with octaves to project time counts, this is easier than using "Time by Planetary Degrees”. 3. Fibonacci Retracements, Fibonacci Expansions or Price Retracements can be used for creating octaves by changing the input variables. 4. Gann Square Range Marker can be used for creating price and time/astro octaves, as well as the Higher Mathematics applications. Instructions for hacking Optuma are available in the Software appendix. Instructions for using existing tools are included in the text.

WAVE59:  In Wave59 we have had a number of the core Sundberg tools pre-programmed by our coder, so they are woking very well in there:

Book 1: 1. Planetary Geometrical Angles, for both Single Planets and Synodical. 2. Square Outs: Straight square-outs and circular square-outs are programmed but not yet released. Triangles are on the worklist. When these last bits are released, this should be most of the tools for Book 1.

Book 2: There is nothing yet pre-programmed for Book 2, but Wave59 probably has a number of tools that can be used or hacked to produce the harmonic levels as with Optuma, and since we already have the single and synodic planetary angles programmed, this will produce most of the required functions for both books.

TRADINGVIEW:  We did have our programmer most actively working with Sundberg to create a new set of tools for TradingView. Here is what is done so far:

Book 1: 1. Planetary Geometrical Angles, for both Single Planets and Synodical. However, this tool contains features belonging to Book 2 and requires that the user owns that book too. We will be coding a stripped-down version for Book 1 only clients. 2. Aspects can also be used to calculate the most common square-outs by using geometry.

Book 2: 1. Aspects: Geometrical angles including Ganns secret tunings. Both single planets and synodical. These can also be used for projecting the most common square-outs from Book 1. 2. Grid: Octaves in price and time. Higher Mathematics settings is an option. 3. Grid Crossing: Crossing the lines technique in combination with the grid. 4. Higher Mathematics: Higher Mathematics applications for both price and time/astro. 5. Circles: The Circle application using price/time vectors. May still need some work.

Online Forum

Since this material is inherently new and challenging and it will take some work to understand and to use these insights effectively, the author has agreed monitor an Online Research Forum where he will answer everyone’s questions and help people work through the material. He has also promised to provide more detailed elaborations of the solutions introduced in the book, showing how to apply the outputs on markets and track the cycles on charts.  This should help to make the material more practical for everyone and make the abstract more tangible. Sundberg is an excellent writer and teacher and enjoys the process of sharing knowledge with others.