How to Choose the Right NinjaTrader Indicators for Your Trading Strategy

Market trading can take many forms, the most basic distinction of which is whether you use a fundamental, technical, or hybrid approach. For technical traders, indicators become paramount to analysis and decision-making. There’s no one best NinjaTrader indicator for all technical trading, however.

You’ll want to use indicators that match your trading. Which ones make sense depends on your time frame, trading strategy, and more. Here is a variety of indicators, along with guidance on selecting NinjaTrader indicators based on your personal trading strategy.

Understanding Your Approach to Trading

Before analyzing indicators, ensure that you can clearly define your trading method. Knowing whether you are a day trader, swing trader, trend follower or scalper requires knowing the following about yourself:

• Time Frame: Traders typically hold positions for anywhere from minutes (or less) to months (or 1+ years for leap options). How long do you typically hold positions? What works with your other obligations, risk acceptance, and understanding?
• Risk Tolerance: How much risk are you comfortable taking? Some strategies are inherently riskier and require indicators that help manage that exposure.
• Market Preference: Do you prefer trending markets, range-bound markets, or breakouts? You may have to modify this and other preferences depending on current market conditions. Be flexible and change the indicators you use as necessary.
• Automation: How much do you rely on pre-placed buy orders or limits, or do you manually choose when to enter and exit? Do you need to automate trades across multiple accounts? These don’t necessarily impact the actual indicators you rely on, but they can necessitate other trading tools.

Choosing the Indicators for NinjaTrader That You’ll Use

Every trader wants real-time data, but this is most important for the shortest-term trades.

Scalpers

Scalpers are day traders who specialize in extremely short-term trades. They enter and exit positions within minutes or seconds, and frequently place multiple trades on the same asset within a brief time frame.

Scalpers need true, real-time data for immediate decision-making. The Affordable Indicators Signals Suite provides real-time information with virtually no delay.

Day Traders

Day traders don’t hold positions overnight, when news can break after hours. They might be in-and-out within minutes, or they could hold for several hours, so long as they’re out by market close.

Day Traders still need real-time information, like what the Signals Suite provides, so they don’t get caught in an unexpected and severe price action reversal.

Swing Traders

Swing traders accept the risk (or reward) of after-market news. They hold positions at least overnight, and sometimes for days, weeks, or months, while targeting slightly slower price changes.

While it’s not ideal, swing traders can sometimes get away with free indicators that have delays in real-time information. For example, many start out on Robinhood before transitioning to a platform like NinjaTrader. Robinhood often has a 1- to 3-minute delay.

Once you’re swing trading on a platform like NinjaTrader, however, you should be using real-time indicators. Delays can leave some profits on the table or increase losses slightly. Even minor reduced gains add up across multiple trades.

Trend-Following Trading Strategies

Trend-following traders aim to capitalize on sustained price movements. They seek to enter a trade early in a trend and ride it for as long as possible.

These traders need indicators that show trend direction, trend strength, and signal potential reversals. You’ll want at least two of these indicators for NinjaTrader:

• Moving Averages: MA shows whether the current price is above or below recent prices. A higher current price suggests an upward trend, while a lower price indicates a potential falling trend. Hitting the MA is sometimes a reversal, at least in the short term. Simple moving averages (SMAs) and exponential moving averages (EMAs) are two of the most common.
• Strength Indicators: Strength indicators help determine how long to ride a trend, predicting when a reversal could be imminent. The two main strength indicators are the relative strength index (RSI) and the average directional index (ADX).
• Support and Resistance: Support and resistance zones indicate areas where there’s significant demand to buy or sell. These can be pauses or reversals in trends. Exceeding a zone could signal a breakout.

If you primarily follow trends, the Best ADX Indicator, Best RSI Indicator, and Support and Resistance Suite are a few good options.

Range Trading Strategies

Range traders profit from price oscillations within defined support and resistance levels. They aim to buy near support and sell near resistance, or the inverse if shorting. Some essential range-trading indicators are:

• Support and Resistance: The most foundational, as support and resistance define the current range.
• Bollinger Bands: These bands expand and contract in response to volatility, providing dynamic support and resistance levels. Price typically reverts to the middle band within a range.
• Relative Strength Index: Indicates when an asset is likely overbought or oversold, helping to identify whether demand aligns with the range-bound price action.
• Stochastic Oscillator: Similar to RSI, the Stochastic Oscillator compares a closing price to its price range over a given period, providing overbought/oversold signals and crossovers for entry/exit.

Another helpful option from Affordable Indicators is the Best Stochastics Indicator. The Signals Suite combines several of these features into a single package.

Risk Management Tools

Effectively managing risk is essential to any trading strategy and during any market. Position sizing and stop-losses are two of the most important risk-management methods, but there are others as well. The Account Risk Management Package from Affordable Indicators integrates multiple methods into your trading, so you can seamlessly enter and exit while being responsible.

The Best NinjaTrader Indicators for You

Ultimately, selecting the right indicators is essential for being a successful trader. You need data that’s most relevant to your strategy and the current market. This can require being flexible when strategies and market conditions change.

Whatever the best NinjaTrader indicators are for you, we at Affordable Indicators are committed to providing a diverse range of high-quality options. Learn more about the features we build in, or set up the Signals Suite today.