Total Return (SPX) vs Price Return (SPXTR)? Can someone explain which would be better for signal generation?

If you’re running a 200D SMA strategy or some other price based, rules based strategy on the Nasdaq-100, S&P 500, or any other index - Is total return or price return best for generating trading signals?

Total return indices like SPXTR are indices that are just the underlying (SPX in this case) with dividends immediately reinvested. In SPX, whenever a company sends out a dividend, that company’s share price drops by the dividend amount. (Example: If Home Depot sends out a dividend of 1%, Home Depot’s stock price drops by 1% the same day.) SPX’s price then reflects that and drops by a very small amount. In total return indices like SPXTR, the index assumes reinvestment.

Price return ends up drifting artificially lower and will always have a lower drift than total return. In some indices like Brazil, the dividend is much higher, creating a huge difference between price and total return.

On the other hand, total return can be seen as drifting artificially higher because dividends should be ignored.

I can’t decide what’s better. I know that it doesn’t matter much, if at all. Backtests clearly show it doesn’t matter when you test over many periods and indices. But I need to decide on one.

Thoughts??