DislikedNah, not there yet but getting very close Wolf. and you are right - any one would do.
I'll put you all out of your misery.
Ive had explainations from using them to see where the suckers are selling, to working out the extremes and even someone told me how they use them as a strategy.
All are inside the box thinking and all are asking the indicator to predict price movement.
After this many years and many sleepless nights you realise that you cannot predict price action with any degree of certainty whatsoever. Candle patterns, averages, ocillators, fibs, channels, forks etc - they all amount to the same thing - just another way of looking at price and none offer anything more than a coin toss in reality.
so why do I still have an indicator or two on my chart? if they do not give me an edge in the market what is their use?
when you read this next few paragraphs there are some reading this that will have an 'aha' moment - a paradigm shift. Others will skim over it and not realise what they see. if that's you come back and read it again in 6 months.
when you have something which you cannot predict, your only edge is a price behavioral principle that you stand by and money management - you have to believe in something right or you could never trade?
My price behavioral principle is that 'trends exist'. Once you have this principle that you believe in you need a way of making a decision to enter long or short.
Here's the kicker. The indicators i use do not predict price action - they do not tell me the probability of a trade's success and they do not tell me what will happen next or how much to trade or what my profit target should be.
To me an indicator is .......
(Drumroll)
A discipline tool.
My chosen indicator(s) force me to decide in that direction - right or wrong it merely makes me do what my plan says i should do. The indicator is neither right nor wrong and nor does it pretend to be.
Now think about this - if it's never right or wrong then why would i tinker with it? all it does is say to me - price is going up, buy or price is going down, sell. and i do.
an indicator or even two of them in tandem just make me do what i'm supposed to do. If trends exist which is my principle beleif then i make money - if they do not exist then i will lose.
so far my principle holds over the long run so i stick to my discipline.
I told you it was not rocket science, but the mindshift from thinking of them as predictory tools to thinking of them as merely discipline tools makes all the difference.
Your principle might be different to mine - you may have the principle that prices often retrace from a keltner by 1% or that a moving average cross signals the start of a trend- whatever - then you build tools to build a test for that principle.
but if that set of indicators that you call a 'system' does not make money - it doesnt mean the system is wrong - it means the underlying price behavior principle is wrong and a major shift of thinking may be needed.
If there is one thing i want anyone to take from this thread it is this - trading methods should be built on ideas and principles - not squiggly lines. The lines are there to make you take action to prove or disprove your principle idea - they are not themselves the idea.
Think about this hard ..... It could change your life.
Hope this helps.Ignored
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