Pipsgrowth EX13004 RSI_MA

Pipsgrowth EX13004 is a bias-aware mean-reversion EA that buys short-term oversold dips inside an uptrend and sells short-term overbought rallies inside a downtrend — never the other way around. The whole strategy lives in two condition checks inside OnTick():

• Long signal: bid > ma[0] AND rsi[0] < rsiOversold (default 30)
• Short signal: bid < ma[0] AND rsi[0] > rsiOverbought (default 70)

The MA is doing the trend-filtering work, the RSI is doing the timing work. A plain RSI(14) < 30 buy is rejected when price is below the SMA, because that pattern usually means the trend is breaking down rather than reverting. A plain RSI(14) > 70 sell is rejected when price is above the SMA, for the mirror reason. The result is a strategy that only fades extremes it disagrees with — long dips in uptrends, short rallies in downtrends — and never fights a trend by buying breakdowns or selling breakouts.

Indicator stack

The EA only opens two native indicator handles in OnInit():

• maHandle = iMA(_Symbol, PERIOD_CURRENT, maPeriod=14, 0, MODE_SMA, PRICE_CLOSE)
• rsiHandle = iRSI(_Symbol, PERIOD_CURRENT, rsiPeriod=14, PRICE_CLOSE)

Both are released in OnDeinit(). Two buffers are copied at the start of every tick (CopyBuffer(handle, 0, 0, 2, buf)) to read the current and previous bar in a single call. That is the entire market data dependency — no ADX, no ATR, no Bollinger Bands, no HTF-EMA, no regime classifier. The strategy makes its decisions off a moving-average trend bias and an RSI timing trigger, period.

Position sizing — calculateLot()

OnTick() calls calculateLot() once per bar, before checking signals. The formula is the textbook risk-percent lot:

lot = (balance * riskPercent / 100) / (stopLoss * valuePerPoint)

where valuePerPoint = tickValue / tickSize. With the defaults — 10% risk percent, 100-pip stop on XAUUSD M5 — the EA sizes each new order so that a full stop-out costs 10% of account balance. The result is NormalizeDouble'd to two decimals and returned. If tickValue or tickSize come back as 0 (rare, but the EA handles it explicitly), calculateLot() falls back to 0.10 lots and prints a warning instead of dividing by zero.

The helpers TryBuy_EX13004() and TrySell_EX13004() then snap that lot to the broker's SYMBOL_VOLUME_STEP, clamp to [SYMBOL_VOLUME_MIN, SYMBOL_VOLUME_MAX], and run an OrderCalcMargin() check against ACCOUNT_MARGIN_FREE before the first send. If margin is short, the helper logs [EX13004] Buy: insufficient margin and returns false without sending.

Order execution and retry

The order loop in OnTick() is structured as a 3-attempt for loop with Sleep(500) between attempts and slippage widening by 5 points per retry (10 → 15 → 20). The price is re-quoted at the top of each attempt by SymbolInfoDouble(SYMBOL_ASK) (for buys) or SYMBOL_BID (for sells). If TryBuy_EX13004 / TrySell_EX13004 returns true, the function returns immediately. If all three attempts fail, OnTick() prints EX13004: Buy failed after 3 attempts err=%d and waits for the next tick.

Inside the helpers themselves, the retry policy is the standard Pipsgrowth signature: 3 attempts, 200ms Sleep, retry on TRADE_RETCODE_REQUOTE, TRADE_RETCODE_TIMEOUT, TRADE_RETCODE_PRICE_OFF, TRADE_RETCODE_PRICE_CHANGED; break the loop on any other retcode. trade.Buy() and trade.Sell() are called with the explicit SL and TP — there is no order-then-modify step, no virtual SL/TP layer.

Trade management — what does not happen is the point

This EA has no break-even lock, no trailing stop, no partial take-profit, no time-based exit, no opposite-signal exit. The SL and TP are set on the order ticket at entry and left there until either the broker hits them or the position is closed. With the defaults that's a 100-pip stop and a 300-pip target — a 3:1 reward-to-risk ratio. The reasoning is the opposite of EX13001 or EX13003: this strategy treats each entry as an independent mean-reversion bet with a fixed structural stop and a fixed structural target, not as a position to be actively managed through a multi-stage exit.

Single-position discipline

The first two lines of OnTick() enforce a strict one-position-at-a-time rule:

UpdateDailyCounters_EX13004(); if(PositionSelect(_Symbol)) return; if(!IsSafeToTrade_EX13004()) return;

If any position on the current symbol is already open, OnTick() returns before copying buffers, before computing lot size, before checking signals. No pyramiding, no hedging, no grid, no basket, no martingale. The EA either has a position on XAUUSD or it does not. That single line of code is the entire risk-on-risk-off mechanism at the strategy level.

The hardening stack — 8-condition IsSafeToTrade_EX13004()

The other pre-signal gate is IsSafeToTrade_EX13004(), which blocks entries when any of the following is true:

1. Capital cap reached — equity >= InpCapAmount (default disabled at 0)
2. Capital floor breached — equity < InpCapFloor (default 50)
3. Equity drawdown — equity < 95% of the g_initialBalance recorded at OnInit
4. Daily realized loss — g_realizedToday <= -effCap * 3%
5. Weekly realized loss — g_realizedWeek <= -effCap * 6% (2× the daily limit)
6. Cooldown active — g_consecLosses >= 3 AND TimeCurrent() < g_cooldownUntil
7. Daily trade count — g_tradesToday >= 50
8. Session / market — !IsMarketOpen_EX13004() OR !InActiveSession_EX13004() OR (InpNewsFilter AND IsNewsTime_EX13004())

Each of g_realizedToday, g_realizedWeek, g_tradesToday, g_consecLosses, and g_cooldownUntil is updated by OnTradeTransaction() on every TRADE_TRANSACTION_DEAL_ADD for deals whose magic matches 22213004 and whose entry is DEAL_ENTRY_OUT. Realized PnL is the sum of DEAL_PROFIT + DEAL_SWAP + DEAL_COMMISSION — i.e. swap and commission are baked in, not added on top. UpdateDailyCounters_EX13004() zeros the daily counter at the calendar day rollover (built from StringToTime of the formatted server date).

Session control and GMT detection

The session filter is the standard Pipsgrowth London-or-NY window translated from broker server time to true GMT. DetectGMTOffset_EX13004() scans up to 100 H1 bars for the first weekend gap > 2 hours, then back-computes the broker's GMT offset from the bar's hour field — when InpServerGMTOffset = 0, auto-detect runs at OnInit(). The result is stored in g_gmtOffset and used by ServerToGMT_EX13004() to translate TimeCurrent() into true GMT before the session check.

The default session window is London 7–16 GMT ∪ New York 12–21 GMT, with InpAvoidAsia = true blocking the 0–7 GMT Asian window. The InpNewsFilter is off by default but can be flipped on to skip 15 minutes around the London and NY open hours. IsMarketOpen_EX13004() adds a hard weekend guard: closed all Saturday, closed Sunday before 22 GMT, closed Friday from 21 GMT.

OnTester fitness function

The backtest scoring formula at the bottom of the file is the same (net * pf) / (1 + dd) shape used across the family, with a hard floor of 30 trades — anything below 30 trades returns 0.0, so the EA is not optimisable on a handful of lucky entries. Without enough trades the score is undefined for the strategy's purposes.

What you actually get when you run it

XAUUSD on M5 is the working configuration. The EA holds at most one position at a time and either rides to the 300-pip take-profit, gets stopped at the 100-pip stop, or sits flat waiting for the next valid signal. Most days produce 0–2 trades. The 95% equity floor means a single bad run can take the EA out of the market permanently until you reset it. The 3% daily / 6% weekly loss caps and the 30-minute cooldown after 3 consecutive losses are the active brakes — under a steady drawdown the EA throttles itself rather than grinding.

Because the strategy depends on price returning to (or toward) the 14-period SMA after an extreme RSI reading, it works best when the intraday trend is mild but the short-term oscillations are large. In a flat, ranging session with both London and NY active, you will see the most frequent clean hits. In a strong directional session, the bias filter will reject most signals and the EA will sit on its hands — which is the intended behaviour, not a bug.