SMAs - what are they good for

You're looking for the One Right Way. (Good luck with that.) As I see it, MAs are not very useful on their own without an underlying context/method. And that context can help determine the MA values that serve it well. I can't imagine that MAs alone can be used as entry/exit triggers for profitable trading. It's not that simple.

Again, I personally just use them as a reference and not as a trade generator. I can trade without them just as I can drive without a dividing line in the middle of the road. But it's nice to have them.

 

Of course, the most important thing about MAs are their color and thickness. Also, dotted lines vs. solid. So many choices! What to do?

 

SMA is the poor mans moving average, better to use Kalman Filters.

 

Any MA is the poor man's version versus price itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

If a trader is waiting for crossovers, that never tested out well for me. What has worked is slope of a SMA then wait for retracement. If doing dailies, check out last five years and find the "mean" average of retracement and place limit order to enter. Same goes with risk.

Normally when SMA's goes flat is often trend reverse.

 

This approach works well with EMAs too.

 

Can you give more explanation of why you think some look better than others? Assuming they have price, 50, 200, in that order... What is it that makes one preferable to another?