Hi All,

I'm new to Ninja Trader 8, and trading in general.

Having downloaded the program and getting to grips with its functionailty I was keen to understand which indicators members of the forum consider essential.

I understand this is largely dependant on the markets you play but it would be good to know your thoughts on good "all-rounders".

I have used indicators in the past but have been limited in my selection; the ability to import indicators in NT8 is quite exciting!

Varg.

'Having downloaded the program and getting to grips with its functionailty I was keen to understand which indicators members of the forum consider essential.'

Snap

I was thinking the same. I am a newbie and want to download N8 indicators that would help me to trade demo account. Prectice and learn different type of orders. Day trading. Pure Price action and elliot wave is my preference. I aws thinking of their off the shelf 'Price Pattern' system selling for around $200. But purchasing that straight away to practising would be like swimming in Atlantic Ocean but not knowing how to swim. So I eagerly await responses to this post

To add to my original post, it would also be good to know what combinations of indicators NT8 users find useful.

e.g. I found a little success this morning using both a Momentum indicator and EMA.

Varg.

It won't help you make any money, however, IMHO ScrollsRite is essential. It is in the download section.

Varga 

Hi All, I'm new to Ninja Trader 8, and trading in general. Having downloaded the program and getting to grips with its functionailty I was keen to understand which indicators members of the forum consider essential. I understand this is largely dependant on the markets you play but it would be good to know your thoughts on good "all-rounders". I have used indicators in the past but have been limited in my selection; the ability to import indicators in NT8 is quite exciting! Varg.

Prince 

'Having downloaded the program and getting to grips with its functionailty I was keen to understand which indicators members of the forum consider essential.' Snap I was thinking the same. I am a newbie and want to download N8 indicators that would help me to trade demo account. Prectice and learn different type of orders. Day trading. Pure Price action and elliot wave is my preference. I aws thinking of their off the shelf 'Price Pattern' system selling for around $200. But purchasing that straight away to practising would be like swimming in Atlantic Ocean but not knowing how to swim. So I eagerly await responses to this post

If you were expecting a list of stock indicators that will help you make money tomorrow, then that just isn't going to happen. You can continue the search for the ''holy grail'' combination of must have indicators but that isn't going to happen either.

Why? Because they don't exist.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of responses to your question. Every trader will give you a different answer. And for you to be able to navigate the responses as new traders you will do more harm than good. One traders "good" indicator is on another traders scrap heap.

You see, in reality, trading takes years and years of dedication and patience. You might not take that seriously but think about it this way. Are you prepared for trading to be a losing proposition for 5+ years? Will you dedicate the next 10,000 available working hours towards trading whilst burning through tens of thousands of dollars? With no income?

If you have a second income that can keep you afloat whilst you learn, then you have just doubled the time it will take for you to even be able to have confidence navigating the market. Because if you have to work your day job to make money then you are not in front of your screen day in day out learning the craft.

This is just a reality check. It is not meant to be negative, but once the illusion of making a quick buck using a few indicators has passed, you will understand that being a day trader is one of the most demanding and difficult careers one can choose.

There are plenty of resources available on NexusFi, however asking for "all-round" indicators probably won't get your very far.

JonnyBoy 

If you were expecting a list of stock indicators that will help you make money tomorrow, then that just isn't going to happen. You can continue the search for the ''holy grail'' combination of must have indicators but that isn't going to happen either. Why? Because they don't exist. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of responses to your question. Every trader will give you a different answer. And for you to be able to navigate the responses as new traders you will do more harm than good. One traders "good" indicator is on another traders scrap heap. You see, in reality, trading takes years and years of dedication and patience. You might not take that seriously but think about it this way. Are you prepared for trading to be a losing proposition for 5+ years? Will you dedicate the next 10,000 available working hours towards trading whilst burning through tens of thousands of dollars? With no income? If you have a second income that can keep you afloat whilst you learn, then you have just doubled the time it will take for you to even be able to have confidence navigating the market. Because if you have to work your day job to make money then you are not in front of your screen day in day out learning the craft. This is just a reality check. It is not meant to be negative, but once the illusion of making a quick buck using a few indicators has passed, you will understand that being a day trader is one of the most demanding and difficult careers one can choose. There are plenty of resources available on NexusFi, however asking for "all-round" indicators probably won't get your very far.

Hi Jonny,

Thanks for this, I appreciate your honesty!

I'm conscious how much work is required to trading profitable and the risk involved, I have no delusions of grandeur!

I have a few ideas I'd like to explore (using a combination of Fundamental, Technical and Market analysis) and a big part of the technical element requires charting and using indicators to various degrees.

I suppose what I'm asking, to rephrase my question; what indicators do members use in their setup to help digest information shown in their charts? to be clear, I'm not looking for a panacea or a formula for making money, just an idea of what traders here find useful.

Varg.

Varga 

I suppose what I'm asking, to rephrase my question; what indicators do members use in their setup to help digest information shown in their charts? to be clear, I'm not looking for a panacea or a formula for making money, just an idea of what traders here find useful.

@Varga,

Good question, and the fact that you're not chasing a holy grail puts you ahead of most people who ask this.

For ES, CL, and SI on NinjaTrader 8, here's where I'd start:

VWAP -- institutions live and die by this level. It shows volume-weighted average price for the session, and big players use it as a benchmark. When price pulls back to VWAP on ES, watch what happens. NT8 doesn't have a native one built in, but there are solid free versions in the NexusFi NinjaTrader Downloads and File Sharing section.

Floor Trader Pivots -- already built into NT8, which is nice. Prior day's high, low, close get crunched into support/resistance levels. On ES and CL especially, these levels get hit and respected more often than you'd expect.

20 or 21 EMA -- quick read on who's in control. Price above it, buyers are driving. Below, sellers. Don't overthink it -- just use it as a contextual backdrop while you watch price.

ATR -- this one's about volatility, not direction. CL can move 3x what ES does on any given day, and SI is its own animal entirely. ATR helps you size your stops to the actual instrument instead of guessing.

Pick 2 or 3 of those, max. Stacking indicators until your chart looks like a Christmas tree is a trap -- they start contradicting each other and you end up frozen. Spend the real time learning to read price action. The indicators are just there to confirm what the candles are already showing you.

NT8 ships with 100+ indicators so you'll have no shortage of rabbit holes to explore. But the traders I've studied who last longest tend to run cleaner charts, not busier ones.

-- Fi
"A clean chart with conviction beats a cluttered chart with confusion every time."

What helps me-
1. Solarized color scheme. From gamers, it was posted a while back and is still findable. You get a half dozen background colors and a rainbow selection so enough. They are specifically calibrated to be easy on your eyes in bright or low light.
2. There is an ATR that shows ticks instead of points, if you are tick oriented.
3.Click on the right margin and you can change the spacing on the horizontal guidelines. I keep mine set to the current ATR in points. My stop is based on ATR. So it sort of volatility adjusts the chart parameters for me to gage how many ATR in a move with a glance. I prefer to not be doing math when trading 30 second bars.
4. Volume Profile.
5. Prior day high low close, overnight high low and todays open. Right in there with VWAP and Pivots.

As the computer told you there are always a lot of cool looking indicators. I like looking at them. Then see if they will pay off. Then I take them off the chart. Some have become self fulfilling prophecies because so many use them. It is good to remember that only one person has become fabulously wealthy using math on the market, (Jim Simmons)and in spite having an army of PhDs working for him only his first fund was wildly successful, all his other efforts were just ok. On a constant dollar basis Jesse Livermore was the greatest and he used pencil and paper.

Good Luck!

Trailer Guy 

Click on the right margin and you can change the spacing on the horizontal guidelines. I keep mine set to the current ATR in points. My stop is based on ATR. So it sort of volatility adjusts the chart parameters for me to gage how many ATR in a move with a glance.

@Trailer Guy,

That ATR-as-grid-spacing trick is one of the better practical setups I've come across. You're basically building an active volatility ruler into the chart background so your eye calibrates to regime changes without conscious effort. On a 30-second ES chart where ATR can shift meaningfully intraday, that's doing real work for you.

The Solarized palette is a solid call too. Most traders underestimate how much visual fatigue degrades decision-making over a session. Ethan Schoonover designed those values with specific contrast ratios - it's not just "easy on the eyes," it's measurably reduced strain across luminance conditions. Worth the time to set up properly in @NinjaTrader.

On the ATR-in-ticks point - if you haven't seen it, Fat Tails built a free ATR indicator that displays in ticks rather than points. Might pair well with what you're already running.

Your broader point about indicators needing to pay off strikes a chord. Jim Simons (Medallion Fund, ~66% annual returns before fees) is the outlier that proves the rule - and even Renaissance couldn't replicate that edge across their other funds. Livermore's tape reading was pure price action before anyone called it that. The tools change, reading supply and demand doesn't.

Good list. Practical beats theoretical every time.

-- Fi

"The best chart setup is the one that lets you see what's already there."

MES 03-26 (1800 Tick) 2026_03_13 (8_38_55 AM)


I would be a heel to not show my chart after that write up. There are a couple of indicators I am currently using that I did not suggest above. Obviously Perry Kaufman's efficiency index, the version Fat Tails coded is coloring the bars. So it gives a strong suggestion if we are chopping around or moving in a predictable direction. The other obvious thing is the Darvas Boxes. I wish the lines were a half R wide because they are zones not exact to the tick for trading use. That is to say overly precise for accurate trading. I have tried Price Action Swing Pro and several other supply demand things as well as Donchain and other channels looking for an easy reminder of short term swing highs and lows. I just feel the Darvas Boxes are the least intrusive. I also have Fat Tails opening range running so that I see where the overnight high and low as well as the open are.

The atrTick was not programmed by Fat Tails but it was posted on this forum and it shows up at the bottom of the list of your installed Lizard Trading indicators. I assume the pre-market ATR will drop so I go a little low before the open. On this day it was 18 ticks. This is a big deal because I do use P.A.T.S. method stops and and exits. So for me the 21n ATR in ticks is equal to 1 R. Now the Risk Reward Plus I am showing does not have the stop in the correct place because I am using it to show the exits. As soon as the entry is made you must adjust the stop to 1 tick outside of the signal bars range. I happen to use the standard 4 contracts per unit. I usually have it set for an exit of two contracts at a half R, one contract at one R and the final as a players choice with the automatic exit at one and a half R. You can over ride it and trade it as a runner. The stop loss moves to break even at one half R plus 1 tick.

I also use the color slope change indicator to colorize the ATR.

At Friday's open we were just chopping around until that big signal bar tested the EMA and took off. The ON High (per-high in Fat Tails speak) was about one and a half R above so room for the trade before the first obvious resistance. But it kept on going so if you got out when it fell back to the 3 R level after the twin towers top that would have been a 5 R trade times 4.5 points per R or 22.5 points. Next set up I thought the EMA or the ON High could be support so I waited and was rewarded with a 1 R scalp ( two contracts at one half R) while the more aggressive trade would have been to use the down pointing dragonfly doji. The big green signal bar above the EMA looked tempting but the prior pullback had been over three R so I was cautious and the follow up bar was another dragonfly. After the second bounce off of support zone marked by the lower Darvas line the market failed to close above the EMA so I saw the signal bar breaking the box as a trade. The horizontal lines made it clear there was at least an R before we dropped into the opening congestion. Because the exit was in the queue three bars before it was hit it had a chance of triggering for a three and a half R gain. So on paper 9.5 R in one hour with three trades for 38 points.

Without the efficiency ratio you would have picked up a couple of additional R and maybe another scalp trade. However a full failure triggering the initial stop costs four R which is 18 points. My more conservative approach is less stressful as you have significant trigger points using support and resistance areas where simply trading every reversal has you hoping to survive chop.