Anyone else feel like 20 years of "indicators" and we still can't see the actual fight?

New comment
 

Maybe it's just a bad week and I'm venting, but hear me out.

I've been at this long enough to have tried basically everything. Moving averages — cool, except by the time two lines cross, the move already happened and I'm buying the top of it. Lagging by design, everybody knows it, we keep using it anyway. RSI, MACD, the whole drawer. Cross, diverge, overbought, oversold. Pretty lines that describe yesterday.

Then the "AI" wave shows up and somehow it's worse. Don't think, we'll ping you. Arrow up, arrow down. And I watch newer guys get genuinely crippled by it — they literally cannot look at a chart and tell you what's happening anymore. They wait for the light. Green, in. Red, out. Ask them why and there's nothing there. Real potential traders, lobotomized by a tool that promised to do the thinking for them. That part actually bothers me.

So okay — I go to the "serious" side. Order flow. Footprint. And I'll be honest, I wanted it to be the answer. But man... it's a wall of numbers. A grid of bid/ask digits screaming at you, and the second you try to read it you're nose-deep "decoding the matrix" and you've completely lost the chart. The actual price, the swing, the story — gone. You're staring at one cell while the whole picture moves on without you. Then half the real info lives in a second window anyway. Delta here, profile there, chart somewhere else. Three screens to understand one move. By the time you've stitched it together the candle's closed.

And that's the thing that gets me. Every tool either:

  • tells you about yesterday (the lagging stuff), or
  • tells you nothing and just barks buy/sell (the arrows), or
  • buries the answer so deep in numbers you lose the actual chart trying to dig it out (footprint).

Where's the thing that just lets you see the force under the move — who's pushing, who's heavy, who's gassed — right there on the price, without a spreadsheet, without a second monitor, without waiting for a line to cross? Something a human can actually feel in real time and still keep their own read?

Or am I asking for a unicorn here. Genuinely curious what the table thinks.

What did you give up on, and is there anything out there that didn't make you dumber?

 

I doubt you will get any useful answer.

People who can read the charts as you suggest are not here in general. If some are reading, they will not answer anyway. 

 
kpadito:
Honestly, I think many traders eventually reach the same point you describe, but maybe the answer is not another tool. Maybe it is the opposite. Less is more. If a trader needs too many indicators, windows, signals and confirmations just to understand what price is doing, maybe the chart has become too noisy.

I don’t think indicators are useless, but they can easily become a crutch. The same with AI signals or order flow tools. They may help, but they should not replace the trader’s own read. In my opinion, to be profitable you do not necessarily need much. Sometimes you may not need indicators at all. A clean chart, price structure, important levels, context, patience and good risk management can be enough when you know what you are doing.

So maybe the real problem is not finding a tool that shows everything. Maybe the real skill is learning what to remove, what to ignore, and how to keep your reading simple. A good tool should make the chart clearer, not make the trader more dependent on it.
 
Miguel Angel Vico Alba #:
Honestly, I think many traders eventually reach the same point you describe, but maybe the answer is not another tool. Maybe it is the opposite. Less is more. If a trader needs too many indicators, windows, signals and confirmations just to understand what price is doing, maybe the chart has become too noisy.

I don’t think indicators are useless, but they can easily become a crutch. The same with AI signals or order flow tools. They may help, but they should not replace the trader’s own read. In my opinion, to be profitable you do not necessarily need much. Sometimes you may not need indicators at all. A clean chart, price structure, important levels, context, patience and good risk management can be enough when you know what you are doing.

So maybe the real problem is not finding a tool that shows everything. Maybe the real skill is learning what to remove, what to ignore, and how to keep your reading simple. A good tool should make the chart clearer, not make the trader more dependent on it.
Miguel, this is the best pushback I could've asked for, and I mostly agree with you. The crutch problem is real — I watched it happen to people, that's half of why I'm frustrated.

But I'd separate two things. There's the indicator that thinks for you (the arrow, the signal, the thing that replaces your read) — that's the crutch, and you're right to want it gone. And then there's information that's just... already on the chart but invisible to the eye. Volume conviction behind a move isn't noise — it's context you'd want even on your clean chart. The question for me isn't "more vs less," it's whether a tool adds a read or replaces one.

Your last line nailed it better than I did: a good tool makes the chart clearer, it doesn't make the trader more dependent. That's exactly the line I'd want to stay on the right side of. Hard part is most tools fail that test.

What's on your chart right now, if anything? Genuinely curious what "clean" looks like for you.
 
Alain Verleyen #:

I doubt you will get any useful answer.

People who can read the charts as you suggest are not here in general. If some are reading, they will not answer anyway. 

Yeah, figures — the ones who can actually read it aren't on public forums, they're tucked away in some corner of the deep web trading quietly while the rest of us argue about indicators...
 
kpadito #:

What's on your chart right now, if anything? Genuinely curious what "clean" looks like for you.
I suppose that, like many others, I started out by filling my chart with indicators. Over time, as I mentioned before, you gradually begin to clean things up until only what is truly necessary remains. In my case, almost without intending to, I would say I have ended up trading in a fairly “nuked” style.

At this point, I only use my own tools to support my trading. They provide me with the information I consider important, especially anything related to risk management. I use indicators only occasionally, when I have a specific doubt or want to understand more precisely where I am within the market context.

Other than that, my chart stays practically empty and clean. In the end, as people often say, price already tells you everything.
 
kpadito #:
Genuinely curious what "clean" looks like for you.

Have a look at custom Renko charts. You'll likely find that when every bar has the same size body (brick), every indicator that you apply thereto will be smoother. If Renko is too rigid for you, then there are always range bars or equal volume bars. Just know that time sensitive code may not run on those timeless custom charts.

I should also note that the markets have been in "pandemic mode" since about February. It's no coincidence that' the most recent oil war began around that same time. The only traders who are loving life in current market conditions are real HFT's in the real futures markets.

 
It is Retail Forex bud , You don't get to see anything til after the fact and by then it is mostly too late . It's not about indicators it's about survival until you thrive then a reset then survive until you thrive . Nobody on here will admit it but it is all BS .You don't need tools you need common sense and logic and patience . Retail trading is just a design to keep pools liquid a bit more and take mugs money just like  bookies or a casino yes you can win as an individual but even then it is  mostly shallow but the house always wins against the masses .  
 
kpadito #:
in some corner of the deep web trading quietly
Hello, I heard a voice from the depths of the darknet: don't use lagging indicators, watch the global highs and lows, behind them hides a large number of stop orders, and close your trades against this liquidity. Extremes mark the beginning and end of a trend, which can be seen without additional tools. ) 
 
I think this is more about a mentality problem, tbh.
New comment