Hi andrewe.
Gann was many things, including a deeply spiritual person. He did have a significant business for a time writing and trading newsletter and also providing trading courses. My understanding is that many of these focussed on the ability to forecast the future using a wide variety of esoteric and occult knowledge - numerology, astrology, some forms of geometry and mathematics etc. Your figure of $50k is not unusual for some of these types of trading courses these days.
Interestingly, with this supposed freakish ability to foresee the future, he is said to have taken $50 million out of the market. He died with an estate worth $100+ thousand - somewhere around $2 million in CPI adjusted terms. A goodly amount but one of the areas that didn't gell for me when I had an interest in learning more of his stuff - for one thing how does someone who can see the future take $50 million and not $50 billion out of the market? Further how does he end up with a dwindled and dwindling estate and not one that grows perpetually?
As I mentioned in another post, W.D Gann did make significant contributions to the history of trading and I wouldn't want to label him a fraud on that basis. However he has certainly gathered a remarkable legend around him since his death.
ZFX
zinifex limited
