That Hogwash is working out fine for me thank you very much The specifics will cost you to learn. You can pay a mentor like myself or you can pay through years of trial and error.
Absolutely nothing - there have been numerous threads started in the past asking the same exact question, and they too were similar abortions to logic. In 1999, one of the wealthiest traders I know of, and one of the biggest pit traders in the S&P and later on the screen in the DAX, looked me square in the eye and said: "the holy grail is that there is no holy grail". Any person who requires dealing in absolutes needs to find another line of work, because trading is definitely not going to work out for you.
I was about to post the same thing. The holy grail is knowing that there isn't a holy grail. Nothing works in a vacuum. Everything is in a context of what is hapenning now. Those who focus on a formula don't do well. You have to feel out the market as it is now and trade accordingly. The trick is knowing what strategy to employ at the time. And more importantly choosing those few times to avoid a certain strategy. For example, one of your go to strategies might be mean reversion. But the key is to use your trading Savy to know the day to not feel compelled to use this one and avoid the devastating loss. Just a simplistic example. Something to ponder, is that the successful traders i have known didn't use charts except to maybe get a reference. If a price trades X, then do X... really doesn't work in a vacuum. ect ect.
Four years ago, I redefined my Grail testing, going from most profit to lowest losing %. It was fun to work on something totally different, concentrating on lowering losing trades instead of making profit. The ES, being what it is, #1/2 above, I do opposite, since losing % very low I can add to ever tic against me and having targets for exits. At some point, I sell when Price goes up and buy when Price comes down. I NEVER recommend to anyone to trade as I do, some losing trades are staggering, but over the long haul, it does extremely well. Simply comes down to how well you backtested your methods. I guess it just depends on the individual on his/hers definition of their idea of what the "Holy Grail" is and where one is in wealth accumulation cycle of life.