The short answer is it has no value whatsoever. Moving averages,...

The short answer is it has no value whatsoever. Moving averages, at least when used that way is simply a price smoothing tool. It's also very easy to understand, which is why it's pushed on the general retail crowd, especially those new to TA.

There are some ma strategies that work very well, however it's generally more a case of a specific stock or index being friendly to that specific ma, rather than the average itself being effective. As an example if you plot a 200 sma on a chart, at some point price will react to the average. Now pick a random number between 170 and 230 and try that. It may not have the same effect on that stock, but pick others and eventually it will.

MA's at a higher level can become quite complex when you get into things such as cycle averages and dynamic averages which constantly change. For now though just use them as a simple trend following tool.

Any questions just ask.
Cheers