Pipsgrowth EX10013 Momentum-Scalper

EX10013 trades a single idea and trades it well: when the fast Stochastic on the M15 timeframe crosses out of an oversold or overbought zone, the EA opens one position and holds it until either the target fills or the next reversal prints. The execution time is also M5 — the EA reads its signal from M15 candles, then runs trade-management on every M5 bar. That split timeframe is the architectural signature: a slower indicator period for signal clarity, a faster bar period for tight risk control. There is no EMA cross, no RSI confirmation, no ADX regime filter, and no higher-timeframe trend gate. The logic is intentionally narrow so that every component is auditable in the source.

Signal formation is direct. On every new M15 bar, the EA copies the latest two K values and two D values from the Stochastic (period K = 5, D = 3, slowing = 3, MODE_SMA, STO_LOWHIGH). A long entry triggers when the previous K was at or below the previous D and the current K has crossed above D, provided the current K is still under 30 (the oversold level of 20 plus a 10-point buffer that lets the cross happen just as momentum is recovering rather than deep in the floor). A short entry is the mirror: previous K at or above D, current K now below D, current K still above 70 (the overbought level of 80 minus a 10-point buffer). Both signals must use the previous and current bar — the EA deliberately uses a two-bar lookback on the indicator to avoid acting on a still-forming candle. The OnTick handler returns immediately unless IsNewBar() confirms a fresh M15 close, which is what enforces the no-repaint rule.

The position-management layer is equally compact. ManageOpenPositions runs on every tick and looks for the opposite momentum signature: a long position is closed when the current Stochastic K is over 80 and starts turning down (K above D and crossing down); a short position is closed when K is under 20 and starts turning up. This is a fast counter-signal exit. There is no break-even step, no partial close, no time-based failsafe, no trail. A position either fills its take-profit, hits its stop-loss, or exits on the first qualifying counter-signal — whichever comes first. The single-position rule is enforced by CountPositions() >= 1: if there is already one open position for this magic number, no new entry fires.

Stop-loss is a hybrid. The EA computes slDist = max(ATR(14) × 1.5, 15 pips × pipSize, broker minimum distance × 1.5). On gold, ATR(14) on M15 is typically 80–150 points, so the ATR floor usually wins once the session gets going. The 15-pip floor is the safeguard for quiet Asian hours when ATR has compressed. The take-profit is a fixed 1.5 × slDist, giving a 1:1.5 R-multiple on the target side — a slightly sub-1R setup that the high hit-rate of mean-reversion crosses is supposed to compensate for. Position sizing is risk-percent based by default (2% of account balance per trade, with a 0.01 fixed-lot fallback) and is hard-capped at InpMaxLot = 5.0 lots per trade.

The safety stack mirrors the rest of the family. IsSafeToTrade_EX10013 runs eight gates before the indicator copy even starts. The capital allocation cap (InpCapAmount, zero disables) prevents the EA from ever treating more than the configured cap as tradeable equity, with a hard floor of $50 (InpCapFloor) that blocks entries when the account falls below. A 95% initial-balance floor shuts the EA down if the account has lost more than 5% from where it started, regardless of recent wins. A 3% daily realized loss limit and a 6% weekly realized loss limit (2× daily) are read straight from the deal stream by OnTradeTransaction, which walks a 90-day history window for DEAL_ENTRY_OUT deals matching this magic number. Three consecutive losses on the same magic number start a 30-minute cooldown. The trade counter caps entries at 50 per day.

The session filter is set in GMT, not server time. DetectGMTOffset_EX10013 walks the H1 bars looking for a 3+ hour weekend gap, then infers the broker's UTC offset from the bar timestamp (defaulting to InpServerGMTOffset if you set it manually). InActiveSession then asks: is the current GMT time in London (07:00–16:00), New York (12:00–21:00), or (with InpAvoidAsia on) nowhere else? Asian hours (00:00–07:00 GMT) are blocked by default because the spread and the chop on gold are unfriendly. Friday after 22:00 server time and the entire Saturday are blocked outright by IsMarketOpen. An optional news filter (InpNewsFilter) closes a 15-minute window around the London and New York session opens.

The retry logic is conservative. TryClose_EX10013 and TryModify_EX10013 each retry up to 3 times on the standard transient codes (REQUOTE, TIMEOUT, PRICE_OFF, PRICE_CHANGED) with 200ms and 100ms sleeps respectively. OpenPosition retries 3 times with a 500ms sleep and incrementally widens the slippage from the base Slippage=3 by 5 points per attempt before giving up. GetAllowedFilling() auto-picks the filling policy from the broker's SYMBOL_FILLING_MODE flag, preferring FOK, then IOC, then RETURN — so the EA works on netting, hedging, and exchange-style accounts without code changes. OnTester scores the backtest as (netProfit × profitFactor) / (1 + maxDD%) with a 30-trade minimum, which favors tight-drawdown curves over raw net profit.

EX10013 is the lean option in the EX10 family. Where EX10007 layers EMA, RSI, ADX, Bollinger Bands, and an M15 HTF confirm into a six-clause trend pullback, and where EX10008 dispatches five separate signal paths by market regime, EX10013 keeps just one indicator and one entry shape. The trade-off is precision over breadth: when gold runs in a clean mean-reversion pattern inside London or NY, the Stochastic cross fires close to the swing and the 1.5R target captures a meaningful slice. When gold trends hard, the same cross fires repeatedly against the move and the SL takes the loss. The EA has no regime detection to tell those two situations apart, so the backtest will show a profit factor that is sensitive to the test period's character — a quiet 2023 may look very different from a news-driven 2024.