Gann Fan & Angles

What are the Gann Fan & Angles?

Gann angles are lines drawn from a significant pivot at fixed rates of price change per unit of time, and a Gann Fan projects the standard set of them from one anchor. The centerpiece is the 1×1 angle, one price unit per one time unit, which W.D. Gann treated as the balance line between price and time; steeper angles (2×1, 3×1, 4×1, 8×1) and shallower ones (1×2, 1×3, 1×4, 1×8) fan out on either side. Unlike a trendline fitted to actual swing points, Gann angles are pure geometry: the slopes are fixed in advance, and only the anchor is chosen.

The conventional reading is that a trend holding above the 1×1 is strong, a trend below it is weak, and when price breaks one angle it tends to travel toward the next, so each fan line acts as sloped support or resistance. The unavoidable caveat is scale: one unit of price per one unit of time means nothing until you define how many points equal one bar, so the same fan looks different under different chart scales and zoom levels. Usable implementations fix the price-per-bar ratio explicitly; without that, the angles are decorative.

How traders use it

• As sloped support and resistance: watching for reactions where price meets a fan line, and for role reversal once a line breaks.
• As a trend-strength gauge: which angle currently contains price (riding above the 1×1 versus sagging into the shallow angles) summarizes how the move measures against Gann's balance line.
• As confluence with horizontal tools: a fan line intersecting a fixed level, such as a prior high or a floor pivot, gets more attention than either alone.