Do you KISS?

Some may raise their eyebrows here, but I asked if you KISS and not if you kiss. What’s the difference? While I let you figure out what kiss is the KISS I refer to is any acronym for ‘Keep it simple stupid’. Don’t focus on the stupid part and what this means is do you try to overcomplicate your trading approach because you think it has to be? Just take a look and think about why you have your current approach and most importantly if it works. I am not advising against complication here as in the end you need to be happy with your approach, but I can’t recall how many charts were shown to me by new traders and I was thinking how on earth can you even trade this or get any information from this piece of art? Food for thought, that’s all.

I, personally, tried with all the helpful indicators and created a mess, maybe because I’m new and I get distracted easy, but now I try to keep the chart as clean as possible and I have less headaches…

Fun title for a thread… I love both kinds of kissing, personally!!

In trading terms, I wish there could be a way of displaying or hiding things we added on a chart,
at the touch of a button, as, for example, when you
wanted to see a chart without the trend lines you had drawn, for example, but without removing them…

I usually just clean my charts alltogether every weekend (meaning - delete everything - and click ‘new chart’)

It really helps with out dated biases…

Gotta admit that I started learning Forex with clean chart, then read some books, added more indicators. Got tips/strategies from the internet, added some more indicators until … my chart was messy, and not readable anymore.
I’ve been back to KISS lately.

Something like this?

https://tastools.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/05-21-14_eminisp_30min.png

I personally do not use any EA’s or custom indicators. I don’t object to a mess when I am researching the market but then I clear everything once I enter the trade. I think it is better to do the analysis yourself and not heavily rely on EA’'s and custom indicators.

One pair, one timeframe, one strategy and a not so bright trader. Lots of sleep at night. KISS me all over

I use just two signals to trade. previously i used MACD and fast stochastic too, but i scrapped them when i could not master them. i never received a proper forex education nor read any books, so the reason i use these was because on the first forex forum i read when i was getting started, someone said these were the only signals needed and so i ran off with that info.

I have literally put the stupid in KISS, but that’s why i’m “young, dumb and full of profit” :stuck_out_tongue:

Forex traders often unknowingly cloud up their minds and confuse themselves by using overcomplicated trading strategies and systems that turn their charts into something resembling art.

Not for epileptics :smiley:

Being at the start of my forex learning, I’ve been tempted by those nice looking indicators I must say, but I thought why not begin with the simplest of simple. Try & get to grips with that first – the chart. Maybe then look at a few things if I hit brick-walls…

How far do you guys think you would be able to get just looking at a clean chart – no moving averages, no s/r, no indicators, nothing – just the old & new candles on the chart & what the eye can read from that? Do you think you’d be able to break even?

Simple or Complicated, doesn’t matter because most people have no idea what even drives price movement. :10:

Doesn’t there come a time when your strategy, in terms of knowing what to look for, becomes second nature? Of course, nearby PA, momentum, and S/R are the things that need to be analyzed but the strategy itself shouldn’t. I think that understanding the system inside out allows any complex strategy to eventually be a KISS system.

That’s how I trade. I have had a live account for about 18 months now and i’m still in the game. I only have bollinger band on my chart and I use one other indicator. Of course, I’ve had more than enough practice in studying the faults of these and now I understand how price would react most of the time in certain situation. I’d say go for it. In my opinion, using multiple indicators creates contrasting signals and so I don’t advise it.