Three Indicators Is Enough
The best crypto indicators are the few you could trade without: Craig keeps two moving averages and a MACD line, as context rather than signals. Most indicators are calculations on the same price data, so stacking them repeats one opinion and lets you shop for permission. Decisions come from price structure and horizontal levels.
Send me a screenshot of a struggling trader’s chart and I can usually tell you the problem before reading a single candle. There are eleven things on it.
RSI, MACD, Bollinger Bands, a couple of moving averages, volume profile, a momentum oscillator, some sloping lines, an ichimoku cloud nobody can explain. Every one added because it seemed to help, none ever removed.
The result is not more information. It is a chart that can justify any decision you have already made.
Why does adding indicators make you worse?
They all say the same thing. Almost every indicator is a calculation performed on price. RSI, MACD, moving averages — all derived from the same data. Stacking six of them does not give you six opinions. It gives you one opinion, repeated, which feels like confirmation and is not.
They disagree at exactly the wrong moment. When a chart is genuinely unclear, your indicators will point in different directions. That is when you need decisiveness most, and it is precisely when a cluttered chart delivers least.
They let you pick your answer. With eleven indicators, at least three will always support what you want to do. You are no longer analysing — you are shopping for permission, and you will always find some.
They hide the price. Which is the only thing that is actually real. Everything else is a summary of it.
What I keep
Two moving averages. Not as signals. As context — a quick read on direction without having to squint. If price is above both and they are rising, that tells me something at a glance. I do not buy because a line was crossed.
A MACD line. For momentum. Is this move carrying weight, or drifting?
That is it. Two averages and a MACD.
Take them off my charts tomorrow and I could still trade — because the decisions are made from price structure and horizontal levels, and those are on the chart whether I add anything or not. Take away price structure and I would have nothing.
That is the test for any indicator: if it vanished, would your process still work? If yes, it is context — keep it if it helps you read faster. If no, you have outsourced your decision to a formula.
What stays on my charts, and what comes off:
The question that clears a chart
For each indicator you currently have, ask:
> Has this ever made me not take a trade I was otherwise going to take?
If it has never stopped you, it is not filtering anything. It is decoration you scroll past on the way to doing what you were going to do anyway.
Most people, being honest, find one or two survive. Everything else was added during a losing patch in the hope that the missing piece was a tool.
It never is. The missing piece is almost always a rule about when not to trade.
Indicators cannot answer the questions that matter
Say every indicator on your chart turns green at once. Now answer:
- How much do you buy?
- Where are you wrong?
- Where do you take profit?
- What would make you skip this entirely?
None of them answer any of that. They describe the chart. They do not make the decision — and the decision is where money is made and lost.
That is the real reason a cluttered chart does not help. Not that the indicators are inaccurate. That you were asking them a question they were never able to answer.
Try this
Screenshot your chart as it is now. Then remove everything except price.
Sit with it for a week. Mark horizontal levels where price has clearly reacted. Read the structure — higher highs and higher lows, or lower highs and lower lows.
Then add back only what you genuinely miss.
Most people add back one thing. Some add back nothing, and find they read the market faster without it — because for the first time they are looking at what the market is doing rather than at six calculations about what it did.
Common questions
Which indicators should you use for crypto trading?
Fewer than most traders run. Two moving averages for a quick read on direction and a MACD line for momentum is enough, used as context rather than signals. The test for any indicator is whether your process would still work if it vanished — if not, the decision has been outsourced to a formula.
Can you have too many trading indicators?
Yes. Most are derived from the same price data, so six of them give one opinion repeated, which feels like confirmation and is not. They disagree when a chart is genuinely unclear, and with enough of them a few will always support what you already wanted to do. They also hide price, the only thing on the chart that is actually real.
How do you know if an indicator is worth keeping?
Ask whether it has ever made you not take a trade you were otherwise going to take. If it never has, it is not filtering anything — it is decoration. Most traders who answer honestly find only one or two survive.
Can indicators tell you when to buy?
Even if every indicator turns green at once, none of them tell you how much to buy, where you are wrong, where to take profit or what would make you skip the trade. Indicators describe the chart. They do not make the decision, and the decision is where money is made and lost.
Want the full checklist?
The two strategies and the checklists behind them are taught step by step in the course — including the rules for when to stay out.
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