Question 1

Is a trading indicator a buy or sell signal?

Accepted Answer

No. An indicator is a calculation on price or volume that gets drawn on a chart. It summarizes data you already have. Any decision to act is yours, and the indicator on its own does not tell you the future.

Question 2

Do indicators predict where price is going?

Accepted Answer

No indicator can see the future. Most are built from past bars, so they describe what already happened. A so called leading indicator reacts sooner but is wrong more often, while a lagging one confirms later with fewer false alarms.

Question 3

Why do my indicators look perfect on old charts but fail live?

Accepted Answer

Sometimes that is repainting, where an indicator quietly changes its past signals after the fact. Other times it is just hindsight bias. Watching an indicator update bar by bar in real time tells you far more than a finished screenshot.