Pipsgrowth EX01005 Adaptive

Pipsgrowth EX01005 Adaptive is a pyramid-style trend follower engineered for XAUUSD on the M5 timeframe, though the source ships with a multi-timeframe selector (InpTimeframe 1=M1 through 9=D1) so the same logic can be re-targeted at H1 or M15 without recompilation. The system is built around three indicator handles — a fast EMA(20), a slow EMA(50), an ADX(14) read at threshold 25, and an ATR(14) that drives every distance-based decision in the file. The trade gate is a directional EMA crossover confirmed by a minimum ADX reading, which is the part of the strategy that filters out chop: the EA refuses to engage unless the Average Directional Index is at or above 25 on the previous closed bar, a level that historically separates trending gold sessions from the sideways noise that dominates Asian hours. The pyramid element is what makes the strategy distinctive. When CheckEntryConditions() finds a fresh long or short setup and there are no open positions in that direction, it opens a single trade sized by either InpLotSize (default 0.01) or the risk-percent path. If price then advances an additional 1.0 × ATR from the most recent entry in the same direction, the EA adds a second position. Each new layer triggers MovePreviousTradesToBreakEven(), which walks through every open position in that direction and ratchets its stop loss up to the original open price, locking in a scratch-or-better exit for prior layers before the next leg of the pyramid begins. The default InpMaxLayers is 3, so a sustained trend can accumulate up to three same-direction positions, each separated by one ATR of price progress. The TryModify() function handles the actual SL modifications with three-attempt retry logic and a guard against invalid-stops errors that some brokers throw when a stop is closer than the symbol's minimum stop level. Risk management is layered well beyond the trade level. IsSafeToTrade() runs at the top of every OnTick and refuses to engage if any of the following is true: capital cap reached (InpCapAmount, disabled by default at 0), capital floor breached (InpCapFloor=100), equity fallen below 80% of the initial balance (MinEquityPercent=80), daily loss exceeding 3% of initial balance (MaxDailyLossPercent=3.0), weekly loss exceeding 8% (InpMaxWeeklyLossPct=8.0), three consecutive losing trades within an unexpired 30-minute cooldown (InpMaxConsecLosses=3, InpCooldownMin=30), ten trades already taken today (MaxTradesPerDay=10), weekend market closure detected by IsMarketOpen() which compares the server time against the standard 22:00 GMT Friday to 22:00 GMT Sunday window, the current GMT hour outside the active session window, a news-time overlap with London or New York opens, the manual kill switch flipped on, or total drawdown against the initial balance exceeding 20% (InpMaxDDPct=20.0). That last check is the catastrophic fail-safe — once triggered, the EA prints a KILL SWITCH: total DD= line and halts all trading until the user intervenes. The session logic uses ServerToGMT() and the InpServerGMTOffset input, which can either be hard-set to the broker's GMT offset or auto-detected by DetectGMTOffset() scanning the hourly bars for the weekend gap and computing the offset from the 22:00 anchor. The default windows are London 7-16 GMT and New York 12-21 GMT, with InpAvoidAsia=true and the Asian block defined as 0-7 GMT. The InActiveSession() function returns true if the current GMT minute falls inside either London or New York, with the Asian window only blocking when both London and New York are closed — so a Gold spike during early NY that bleeds into 21:30 GMT still counts as in-session. News avoidance is conservative: IsNewsTime() returns true whenever the current GMT minute is within 30 minutes of either the London open (default 7:00) or the New York open (default 12:00), so the EA stays flat through the typical NFP, CPI, and FOMC release windows. Lot sizing has two paths. When InpRiskPercent is greater than zero (default 1.0), CalculateLotSize() divides the risk amount (effective capital × 1%) by the SL distance in points × the symbol's tick value, producing a lot size that scales with both account growth and the ATR-derived stop. When InpRiskPercent is zero, the EA falls back to the fixed InpLotSize=0.01. Both paths route through NormalizeLot(), which floors the lot to the symbol's volume step and clamps to the symbol min/max and the hard InpMaxLot=100 cap. The effective capital itself is mutated by EffectiveCapital() — if InpCapAmount is set, equity is capped at that level for sizing, which is useful for traders who want to size positions as if they had less than they actually do, leaving a buffer for adding layers later. Exits work in two ways. The first is the opposite-signal exit in UpdatePositionManagement(): if the EA holds a long position and the fast EMA is now below the slow EMA on the closed bar, the position is closed via TryClosePosition() with three retry attempts. The second is the trailing stop, which is recomputed every tick at a distance of InpTrail_ATR_Multiplier (default 1.5 × ATR) from the current bid for longs or current ask for shorts. The trailing logic only ratchets in the profitable direction and only tightens the stop — it never loosens it, so a 1.5 ATR trailing stop on Gold at $2,400 with a 200-point ATR sits roughly $30 behind price and locks in any further move. There is no fixed take-profit; positions are expected to run until either the opposite-signal close, the trailing stop, or the per-trade stop loss fires. OnTester() exposes a custom optimization criterion that multiplies profit by a clamped profit factor (capped at 10) and divides by a drawdown penalty, returning zero if drawdown exceeds InpMaxDDPct, fewer than 20 trades were taken, or the period was net-unprofitable — this gives the MetaTrader optimizer a strong signal to find parameter sets with both profitability and contained risk rather than raw return. Practical deployment notes: the EA defaults to XAUUSD M5 with a $100 minimum, but the pyramid of up to three positions at 1% risk each means a more realistic balance for a single-symbol deployment is $300 to give each layer its stop room without tripping the 80% equity floor. The InpMaxSpread filter defaults to 50 points (0.5 USD on a 5-digit gold feed) and is the single most common reason this EA skips a session — brokers with weekend gold spreads wider than that should be avoided. InpDryRun=true is the recommended first run: it logs the BUY/SELL signal line to the journal without sending any order, which is the fastest way to confirm the EA is reading bars and the session window correctly on a new broker before committing capital. The recommended session is the London and New York overlap from 12:00 to 16:00 GMT, where both InpLondonStartHour and InpNYStartHour windows are open and gold liquidity is deepest; the Asian session is excluded by default but can be re-enabled by setting InpAvoidAsia=false, which is generally not advisable on M5 gold because of the lower-volume, wider-spread conditions that dominate the 0-7 GMT window.