@fluffycone  I think you might be better off starting with the   SPY Systems  rather than the KISS. 

The challenge with the KISS is it's run on hundreds of stocks and is a single entry system with rather wide stops. Because of this, KISS will inherently have more losing trades because there are more trades in total. But risk is well defined with the set STS and KISS is designed to mitigate losses.

The bigger issue, as you noted, is you also need to cherrypick the KISS trades which further reduces the   individual likelihood of profit, especially over small timeframes. I'd be willing to bet if you took ALL of the KISS trades (as a giant fund could), you'd be nicely profitable, over a longer timespan. But that's not feasible.

The SPY Systems trades are far less frequent (especially in this market...) but have been extensively backtested. The trades have a ton of logic built into the signals. And importantly, they allow for 2nd and even 3rd entries, which are leveraged to recoup losses of earlier entries. Matt & Steve tell you when to enter AND exit, which can be really hard to get right on your own. They do have losing trades but in my experience they are extremely net profitable. In 2022 my SPY System profits paid for well over 20 years of BPT. I've already paid for this year with the small number of trades we've had... AND I missed two of the most profitable ones due to vacation.

You do have to follow the SPY System entry protocol (take ALL entries of a given trade) and trade size is therefore very important. In my experience, the ideal situation is starting with the right trade amount that will allow you to take up to 3 potential entries on the trade. Let's say you have 15k to trade with (not invest...). You might allocate $2k to a first entry knowing you might need to put in another $2k (or even $4k) for that one trade. Then, if another trades triggers, you'd still have $9 in your wallet to work with.