Pipsgrowth EX02017 Breakout

Pipsgrowth EX02017 is a Williams-fractal breakout scalper engineered for XAUUSD on the M15 chart. The EA watches the most recent confirmed upper and lower Williams fractals — those are the local pivot highs and lows that print when an M15 candle has two lower-high neighbours on each side (for the upper fractal) or two higher-low neighbours (for the lower fractal) — and waits for a closed-bar close to break through the fractal level by at least FractalBuffer pips (5 pips by default). The break must occur on a freshly closed bar; live-tick breaches are not enough.

The signal layer is intentionally lean. There is no ADX regime classifier, no multi-timeframe EMA, no SuperTrend, no Gaussian channel. Just the iFractals handle on PERIOD_M15 plus an iATR(14) handle to size the stop. The EA refreshes the fractal and ATR buffers in RefreshIndicators() each new M15 bar, scanning a 30-bar window for the most recent non-EMPTY upper and lower fractal values, then updates two globals — lastFractalHigh and lastFractalLow — that the entry logic consults in OnTick().

When a long break fires, the EA calls OpenPosition(ORDER_TYPE_BUY). The function sizes the lot via CalculatePositionSize(): if UseMoneyManagement is true, it risks RiskPercent of account balance (2.0% by default), divides by the per-pip value of the symbol, and floors to the lot step. If money management is off, it falls back to FixedLotSize (0.01 by default). The stop distance is the maximum of three things: currentATR * 1.5, StopLossPips * pipSize (15 pips default), and minDist * 1.5 where minDist is the broker's stops_level expressed in price units (with a 10-pip fallback). This floor-driven SL means the EA widens its stop on volatile gold sessions and tightens during quiet ones, but it never goes below the static 15-pip reference or below the broker's minimum-stop distance.

Take-profit distance is max(SL * 2, minDist * 1.5), giving a 1:2 reward-to-risk ratio that the source guards with a minDist floor so the TP is never placed inside the broker's minimum-stop zone. SL and TP are normalized through NormalizePrice_EX02017, which rounds to the symbol's tick size. Before sending, the EA calls OrderCalcMargin to confirm the account can fund the order, and then it sends via the CTrade wrapper with the configured magic (22202017) and a Slippage of 3 points. If the broker returns REQUOTE, TIMEOUT, PRICE_OFF, or PRICE_CHANGED, the EA retries the entry up to three times with 200ms between attempts.

Risk management is handled at the account level, not the position level. There is no trailing stop, no break-even ratchet, no partial close — the position is held to its static SL or TP, and the EA only opens one position at a time (CountPositions() >= 1 short-circuits the entry block). The hardening stack takes over once trades start flowing. OnTradeTransaction watches for deal additions with the EA's magic, sums the deal's profit + swap + commission, and updates g_realizedToday and g_realizedWeek. When realized daily loss reaches InpDailyLossLimitPct of initial balance (5% by default), IsSafeToTrade_EX02017 blocks all new entries. When g_consecLosses crosses InpMaxConsecLosses (5 by default), a cooldown is set: g_cooldownUntil = TimeCurrent() + InpCooldownHours * 3600 (4 hours), and the EA pauses new entries until that wall-clock deadline passes.

The session gate is a hard wall. DetectGMTOffset_EX02017 runs on OnInit and walks offsets from -12 to +12 GMT, scoring each by weekday (Mon-Fri +10) and hour (7-21 +5), then locks in the best score as g_gmtOffset. With the default config, InpUseGMTSessions is on, InpLondonStartGMT/InpLondonEndGMT define 7-16 GMT, and InpNewYorkStartGMT/InpNewYorkEndGMT define 12-21 GMT. InActiveSession_EX02017 checks whether the current GMT hour falls inside either window. The market-open guard also blocks Saturday, Sunday before 22 GMT, and Friday from 22 GMT onward. IsNewsTime_EX02017 queries the MQL5 economic calendar via CalendarValueHistory for events in a ±InpNewsBufferMinutes (30 minutes) window, and blocks entries if any high-importance event lands in that band.

Capital protection is configurable but inactive by default. InpCapAmount is 0.0 out of the box, which disables the cap. When set above zero, the effective capital is min(InpCapAmount, equity), and if that effective capital falls below InpCapFloor (1000.0), the EA refuses to trade. The kill switch is InpMinEquityPct (70.0% of initial balance): if equity drops below 70% of the snapshot taken in OnInit, IsSafeToTrade_EX02017 blocks entries.

The Tester criterion in OnTester() is profit * profitFactor / maxDD, gated by profitFactor in (0, 1000], maxDD > 0, and at least 10 trades. Note the gates here are looser than the rest of the EX02 family — the trade-count minimum is 10 instead of 30, reflecting the lower-frequency nature of a one-position-at-a-time M15 breakout EA.

In practice this is a set-and-forget gold breakout: minimal inputs, a single fractal-based signal on the M15, a static SL/TP, and a hardening stack that protects the account rather than micro-managing open trades. It's suited for traders who want a clean Williams-fractal implementation without the multi-layer confirmation stack that the more complex EX02 EAs bring.