I have scanned through most of the replies to this thread and there are some replies I agree with and others I don’t.
Let me briefly add my perspective. I am going to be cryptic on purpose as there is no way I would divulge my holy grail - ever. But I will try and assist in changing your thinking so you might be able to reach the (your?) holy grail.

First off, yes there absolutely is a holy grail in trading, however the holy grail consists of a number of components and these all need to fit together and work seemlessly. There are 3 parts that make up the holy grail - a system or methodology, mental fortitude and adequate capitalization for whatever your system or methodology requires. Some more detail regarding these is important.

1) The system/methodology

My opinion of a holy grail system is one that can be traded either as a scalping system or swing system, can be traded in any market and can be traded on any time frame or price frame. Will you find this type of system being offered by any guru, vendor or anyone else who peddles systems? The simple answer is NO. Does something like this exist - YES. Would anyone who has a system like this sell it or share it..NEVER. If you want to a system such as this, you need to develop it yourself. If you think you can use any of the canned indicators that come with every trading platform, you’re wrong. You have to think outside the box, at techniques that exist in other vocations and nature, and adapt those to trading. I will give you some small hints of how I, after 15 years of being a failed but extremely determined trader (I’m a dogmatic Taurus and the word failure does not exist in my vocabulary) changed my way of thinking and thought about doing things differently.

If we think about markets, they usually exist in primarily 2 states - a relaxed laidback state and a psychotic state. The relaxed state is when the market is just trading backwards and forwards, no emotional hype driving it. The psychotic state is usually around news events or after something that has resulted in the market behaving like an unbroken stallion, bucking and heaving all over the place until eventually the stallion realizes he’s not winning the dual and starts behaving
“normally“. The normal in the market, after the psychotic episode is when a trend is underway and becomes quite predictable. Usually the psychotic episode kicks the market into a trend.
So in order to find a system or methodology that works in all these conditions, you have to account for its personality first. My suggestion is look at 3 concepts from physics or nature - velocity, acceleration and adaptability. You should try and code indicators that encompass these qualities and will allow you to identify what state the market is in. When the market is relaxed, the velocity and acceleration will be low (acceleration is actually zero at this time) but when it becomes psychotic, the velocity and acceleration pick up and you can trade the change accordingly. When the market is accelerating, you should be trading that side of the market until the velocity and acceleration tell you it’s changing.
Now onto adaptability. Adaptability aspect should tell you in which direction you should be trading, and whether you are in a strong trend ( which your velocity/accelerator indicator/s will confirm) When the market is relaxed, you need your indicator to reflect that, but when the market becomes rowdy and eventually hits a trend, the indicator needs to rapidly adapt to these changes. There are a multitude of adaptive indicators on the market - find the one/s that will give you this information, do some small modifications to make it your own, and you will have something that will never break and will be tradeable anywhere and everywhere!

2) After finding your edge with the correct tool you have developed, they mean nothing unless you have psychological fortitude and are able to control your mind. This is THE most important aspect of anything related to trading as it is your emotions against the worlds emotions. All markets are simply the worlds emotions on display and at play. As with anything in life, HUMANS DO NOT FUNCTION WELL UNDER STRESS (not shouting I really want this point to sink in as the 95% of all traders never appreciate this point and how important it is and continue to lose). I can tell you my 15 years of failure in trading wrought some significant psychological damage, just like it does to every single trader on the planet, but you have to realize that if you do not get control of this, you will not only never reach your holy grail, but you will forever be a failing/failed trader. Mark Douglas, The Disciplined Trader is a phenomenal book to get on the right path to overcoming psychological damage/hangups. The way I found works best for me now is to algorithmic trade, where I do not have to make any decisions in the heat of battle, I simply let the methodology/system do it’s thing. Even today, I sometimes feel I want to do some discretionary trading and even though I know all the pitfalls, I still get swept away sometimes and do stupid, head smacking things that when the trade is closed, I till say to myself, ”I cannot believe you fell for that”. For example, you have your order waiting to be executed, the market gets close to your order and then suddenly darts quickly away. You think, oh no, its not coming back here so you start chasing it to either get into or out of a position, and when executed, see the market a while later go exactly back to where your original order was sitting. When I’m algorithmic trading, none of this ever occurs as I’m not making decisions based on emotion. Emotions are one of the most important qualities we have as humans and you need to be 100 percent in control of them in the market, not 80 or 90 %, the full 100 %, and if you cannot, them trade algorithmically.

3) Adequate capitalization - This is a very simple point - told by many traders, often. If you are trading on the sniff of an oil rag, you have no chance of making it and it is from this, that most of the psychological damage occurs. You are too scared to lose money and so you trade like a dick. You don‘t have rational stops, you use a simple money stop. You do not take into account leverage adequately so trade out of your comfort zone. There is a load that one could discuss regarding this but this was supposed to be a brief post but seems to have become really extended. Bottom line is if you do not have an adequately funded account, don’t trade until you are able to get more cash together, or today one can actually trade micro contracts. Trade these micros, they can certainly help. Losing $50 in a trade rather than $500, in a small account is in itself, huge!

Hope some of these hit home and make you rethink various aspects of trading. But I am certainly, strongly on side for the existance of the holy grail.

There is no such thing as one system that works on every asset. Every asset trades different and needs different ways of trading.

Dreaming of making constant money from all markets is nothing but a retail traders dream, an unrealistic one that is.

There is not one professional trader out there that trades all markets. Definitely not active. Professional traders trade one or 2 different asset classes or a basket of stocks. There is no way to actively monitor the entire market.

Even for algorithms that is nearly impossible, algo firms have maybe a dozen different algos at work at once with millions in maintenance costs every year.

Retailers cannot compete with that, not on the long run. Best is to keep things simple and to focus on an instrument or 2.

Sir, your opinion is totally wrong. Instead of quoting all the tired, well accepted BS that is currently available on the internet, read what I have said, and try to change your mind into what is possible rather than what you have been told by all these big great institutional traders and gurus who couldn’t actually trade themselves out of a paper bag if they had to. So what you state is absolutely untrue and false. I couldn’t really care which so called professional traders have said that all markets cannot be traded with one algorithm...I’m telling you, yes they can. The same tools for each different market is totally possible...read what I said...adaptive...adaptive...adaptive tools. Instead of just trying to find faults in what I’ve said, maybe think like 0.1% of successful traders do, and you will see that, not only is it possible, but probable.
Your thinking is like the 95% of traders who lose (remember I was in that category for many years) until I found a way to go totally against everything you ever read, are told and indoctrinated with.
If you choose to read everything I wrote through a lens of criticism rather than education, your loss. I have been on futures.io for years and I usually don’t have much time to read and contribute, but this topic piqued my interest and I thought I would break all the commonly held crap from all sources, that simply are not true. Institutional traders and funds with billions mean nothing in my world because I am beating them every day, all day, and in any market I choose to trade. Stop being scared into and limited by what ever you read or have been told. It simply isn’t true!!!

Sir, your opinion is totally wrong. Instead of quoting all the tired, well accepted BS that is currently available on the internet, read what I have said, and try to change your mind into what is possible rather than what you have been told by all these big great institutional traders and gurus who couldn’t actually trade themselves out of a paper bag if they had to. So what you state is absolutely untrue and false. I couldn’t really care which so called professional traders have said that all markets cannot be traded with one algorithm...I’m telling you, yes they can. The same tools for each different market is totally possible...read what I said...adaptive...adaptive...adaptive tools. Instead of just trying to find faults in what I’ve said, maybe think like 0.1% of successful traders do, and you will see that, not only is it possible, but probable.
Your thinking is like the 95% of traders who lose (remember I was in that category for many years) until I found a way to go totally against everything you ever read, are told and indoctrinated with.
If you choose to read everything I wrote through a lens of criticism rather than education, your loss. I have been on futures.io for years and I usually don’t have much time to read and contribute, but this topic piqued my interest and I thought I would break all the commonly held crap from all sources, that simply are not true. Institutional traders and funds with billions mean nothing in my world because I am beating them every day, all day, and in any market I choose to trade. Stop being scared into and limited by what ever you read or have been told. It simply isn’t true!!!

The fact that you see your opinion as the only truth is all i need to know ...

You might think my thinking is like 95% of the traders who lose, luckily i know for a fact that i am not one of them. In fact, i would be thinking like 95% of the traders who lose IF i where to accept your testimony here as the one and only truth with 0 evidence to back it up.

I know several math geniuses myself who work and used to work as coders for large firms who mainly trade through complex algorithms. My reply is based on what they told me after i mailed them your post. They are not some so called gurus or YouTube fakes milking noobs.

So, if you have created one algorithm that can trade all markets profitable, good on you. You are probably the only person to have done so and you should be a billionaire in no time. In fact, shouldn't you already be one?

A profitable system or algorithm isn't the same as a holy grail ...

You seem to be very intimidated or in awe of titles and individuals who tell you what is possible and limit your potential. You believe these “math geniuses who work and used to work as coders for large firms who mainly trade through complex algorithms”. Interestingly enough my algorithm is extremely simple and not based on complex algorithms so that might just be where all retail traders should look. All I can say is open your mind and stop trying to find fault with every individual who might try and lead you to the holy grail!

The fact that you see your opinion as the only truth is all i need to know ...

You do realize you are "just one of those gurus who couldn’t actually trade themselves out of a paper bag if they had to" as long as you don't post any proof, right?

The fact that you claim to have created a holy grail that isn't even complex coding and is beating the biggest geniuses on the planet spending millions and millions a year to just keep their algorithms running is just to funny.

You might think that i am intimidated by those guy's that i know personally, but you are doing nothing different: "telling me what is possible". The only difference is is that there is plenty of information available for everyone to read on the biggest financial institutions of the world and their running costs, employees, returns, ... Plenty of information about how things are done in the industry. There is nothing about you anywhere and yet you are the one who beat them all.

Yeah right.

That is what I noticed right away as well.

You have your opinion. They have theirs. Only you are not trying to impose yours on someone else - who seems to have a superiority complex of some sort.

I have scanned through most of the replies to this thread and there are some replies I agree with and others I don’t.
Let me briefly add my perspective. I am going to be cryptic on purpose as there is no way I would divulge my holy grail - ever. But I will try and assist in changing your thinking so you might be able to reach the (your?) holy grail.

First off, yes there absolutely is a holy grail in trading, however the holy grail consists of a number of components and these all need to fit together and work seemlessly. There are 3 parts that make up the holy grail - a system or methodology, mental fortitude and adequate capitalization for whatever your system or methodology requires. Some more detail regarding these is important.

1) The system/methodology

My opinion of a holy grail system is one that can be traded either as a scalping system or swing system, can be traded in any market and can be traded on any time frame or price frame. Will you find this type of system being offered by any guru, vendor or anyone else who peddles systems? The simple answer is NO. Does something like this exist - YES. Would anyone who has a system like this sell it or share it..NEVER. If you want a system such as this, you need to develop it yourself. If you think you can use any of the canned indicators that come with every trading platform, you’re wrong. You have to think outside the box, at techniques that exist in other vocations and nature, and adapt those to trading. I will give you some small hints of how I, after 15 years of being a failed but extremely determined trader (I’m a dogmatic Taurus and the word failure does not exist in my vocabulary) changed my way of thinking and thought about doing things differently.

If we think about markets, they usually exist in primarily 2 states - a relaxed laidback state and a psychotic state. The relaxed state is when the market is just trading backwards and forwards, no emotional hype driving it. The psychotic state is usually around news events or after something that has resulted in the market behaving like an unbroken stallion, bucking and heaving all over the place until eventually the stallion realizes he’s not winning the dual and starts behaving
“normally“. The normal in the market, after the psychotic episode is when a trend is underway and becomes quite predictable. Usually the psychotic episode kicks the market into a trend.
So in order to find a system or methodology that works in all these conditions, you have to account for its personality first. My suggestion is look at 3 concepts from physics or nature - velocity, acceleration and adaptability. You should try and code indicators that encompass these qualities and will allow you to identify what state the market is in. When the market is relaxed, the velocity and acceleration will be low (acceleration is actually zero at this time) but when it becomes psychotic, the velocity and acceleration pick up and you can trade the change accordingly. When the market is accelerating, you should be trading that side of the market until the velocity and acceleration tell you it’s changing.
Now onto adaptability. Adaptability aspect should tell you in which direction you should be trading, and whether you are in a strong trend ( which your velocity/accelerator indicator/s will confirm) When the market is relaxed, you need your indicator to reflect that, but when the market becomes rowdy and eventually hits a trend, the indicator needs to rapidly adapt to these changes. There are a multitude of adaptive indicators on the market - find the one/s that will give you this information, do some small modifications to make it your own, and you will have something that will never break and will be tradeable anywhere and everywhere!

2) After finding your edge with the correct tool you have developed, they mean nothing unless you have psychological fortitude and are able to control your mind. This is THE most important aspect of anything related to trading as it is your emotions against the worlds emotions. All markets are simply the worlds emotions on display and at play. As with anything in life, HUMANS DO NOT FUNCTION WELL UNDER STRESS (not shouting I really want this point to sink in as the 95% of all traders never appreciate this point and how important it is and continue to lose). I can tell you my 15 years of failure in trading wrought some significant psychological damage, just like it does to every single trader on the planet, but you have to realize that if you do not get control of this, you will not only never reach your holy grail, but you will forever be a failing/failed trader. Mark Douglas, The Disciplined Trader is a phenomenal book to get on the right path to overcoming psychological damage/hangups. The way I found works best for me now is to algorithmic trade, where I do not have to make any decisions in the heat of battle, I simply let the methodology/system do it’s thing. Even today, I sometimes feel I want to do some discretionary trading and even though I know all the pitfalls, I still get swept away sometimes and do stupid, head smacking things that when the trade is closed, I till say to myself, ”I cannot believe you fell for that”. For example, you have your order waiting to be executed, the market gets close to your order and then suddenly darts quickly away. You think, oh no, its not coming back here so you start chasing it to either get into or out of a position, and when executed, see the market a while later go exactly back to where your original order was sitting. When I’m algorithmic trading, none of this ever occurs as I’m not making decisions based on emotion. Emotions are one of the most important qualities we have as humans and you need to be 100 percent in control of them in the market, not 80 or 90 %, the full 100 %, and if you cannot, then trade algorithmically.

3) Adequate capitalization - This is a very simple point - told by many traders, often. If you are trading on the sniff of an oil rag, you have no chance of making it and it is from this, that most of the psychological damage occurs. You are too scared to lose money and so you trade like a dick. You don‘t have rational stops, you use a simple money stop. You do not take into account leverage adequately so trade out of your comfort zone. There is a load that one could discuss regarding this but this was supposed to be a brief post but seems to have become really extended. Bottom line is if you do not have an adequately funded account, don’t trade until you are able to get more cash together, or today one can actually trade micro contracts. Trade these micros, they can certainly help. Losing $50 in a trade rather than $500, in a small account is in itself, huge!

Hope some of these hit home and make you rethink various aspects of trading. But I am certainly, strongly on side for the existence of the holy grail.