Pipsgrowth EX16011 Trend

Pipsgrowth EX16011 is a single-position gold reversal EA built around one specific candlestick formation: the engulfing bar. It loads ATR(14) on the M15 timeframe, watches for a closed bar that fully engulfs the prior bar's real body, and only acts when the engulfing bar's body is at least 1.2× the size of the bar it consumes (the MinEngulfRatio input). Everything else in the EA — the SL, TP, trailing stop, lot sizing, retry logic, and trade-comment string — is a wrapper around that single decision.

The signal logic in GetEngulfingSignal() works on the two most recent closed M15 bars (bar 1 = most recent closed, bar 2 = the one before it). A bullish engulfing requires three things simultaneously: bar 2 must be bearish (close2 < open2), bar 1 must be bullish (close1 > open1), and bar 1's body must completely cover bar 2's body — meaning bar 1 closes above bar 2's open and opens below bar 2's close. The minimum body ratio of 1.2 (MinEngulfRatio) ensures a weak inside-body scenario does not pass; the engulfing bar has to be meaningfully larger than the bar it absorbs. A bearish engulfing is the mirror: bar 2 bullish, bar 1 bearish, bar 1 opens above bar 2's close and closes below bar 2's open, with the same 1.2× body ratio. There is no trend filter, no oscillator, no momentum confirmation, no session gate — the signal is purely geometric. When the conditions don't line up, the function returns 0 and OnTick() does nothing.

The order flow runs through OpenPosition(), which computes both the stop distance and the take-profit distance from the live ATR(14) reading refreshed on each new bar. The stop-loss distance is max(ATR × 1.5, StopLossPips × pipSize, minDist × 1.5) where minDist derives from the broker's SYMBOL_TRADE_STOPS_LEVEL (with a 10-pip fallback when the broker reports zero). The default StopLossPips is 15, so the SL is at least 15 pips and widens automatically when ATR(14) is higher than 10 pips. The take-profit distance is max(SL × 2, minDist × 1.5) — a minimum 1:2 risk-reward regardless of how tight the SL got. Both prices are normalized to _Digits before being attached to the order, and the lot size comes from CalculatePositionSize(), which uses the standard 2% balance risk (the RiskPercent input) divided by slPips × pipValuePerLot, floored to the symbol's volume step, and clamped to the broker's min/max volume.

Management happens on every tick through ManageOpenPositions(), which iterates positions matching the EA's symbol and magic number. Once the open profit exceeds TrailingStartPips = 10, the EA begins ratcheting the stop-loss: for a buy, it sets the new SL to currentPrice - 10 pips, but only if that new SL is more than TrailingStepPips = 5 above the current SL (newSL > sl + 5 pips). For a sell, the mirror condition applies. The trailing stop is incremental — it never moves backward, it only advances in 5-pip jumps, and it never modifies the take-profit (the TP is passed through as PositionGetDouble(POSITION_TP) in each modify call). There is no break-even step, no partial close, and no time-based exit; the trade lives until either TP, SL, or the trailing ratchet takes it out.

The position-counting rule is strict: OnTick() calls CountPositions() after the filters pass, and if there is already one open position for the EA's symbol and magic, the function returns immediately. This is a one-position-per-symbol EA — no pyramiding, no averaging, no grid, no martingale, no recovery multiplier. The brief claims a 12-layer stack including NO-TRADE, CAPITAL CAP, SCALING, and OnTester modules, but the code only wires signal/entry/manage/exit/sizing/risk: there is no equity-stop, no daily loss circuit, no session filter, no news filter, no time-stop, and OnTester() is empty. The actual risk control is the fixed 2% per-trade risk combined with the single-position cap and the 25-pip spread filter (UseSpreadFilter = true, MaxSpreadPips = 25.0) that rejects entries when the live spread is too wide for a clean engulfing fill.

Order execution goes through the MQL5 CTrade wrapper with SetExpertMagicNumber(22216011), SetDeviationInPoints(3) for slippage tolerance, and an auto-probed filling mode that prefers FOK if the broker supports it, otherwise IOC, otherwise the legacy RETURN mode. Three retry helpers — TryClose_EX16011, TryClosePartial_EX16011, and TryModify_EX16011 — each attempt the operation up to three times, sleeping 200ms after a REQUOTE/TIMEOUT/PRICE_OFF/PRICE_CHANGED response from the close/partial-close calls and 100ms after REQUOTE/TIMEOUT from the modify call. TryModify is the only one actually invoked from live code (via SafePositionModify); the close helpers are defined for resilience but are not on a call path. SafePositionModify itself re-validates the proposed SL/TP against SYMBOL_TRADE_STOPS_LEVEL, refuses to set an SL on the wrong side of price, and refuses to set a TP closer than the broker's minimum distance — a defense against the kind of -1 errors that come from sending a stop into the bid/ask.

The EA's overall character is that of a low-input, signal-driven scalper. The 3 input groups (Risk Management, Trade Settings, Trailing Stop, Filters) sum to 11 parameters in total. The minimum recommended balance is $100 — UseMoneyManagement = true plus RiskPercent = 2.0 means a $100 account risks $2.00 per trade, sizing the lot to whatever the SL distance and gold's tick value allow; on $100, with a 15-pip SL, that's roughly 0.01 lots. The single-position cap and the strict engulfing geometry mean there are no surprise margin calls from a runaway grid, but it also means the EA will sit flat through long stretches of gold chop where no clean engulfing pattern forms. Backtests on M15 gold tend to show a moderate trade frequency with a winner profile that depends on whether the 1:2 RR TP fires before the trailing stop takes over — the trailing ratchet becomes dominant on trades that survive the first 10 pips of profit, and from that point on the trade is essentially a runner with a 10-pip trailing floor.

On the operational side, run this on an ECN or RAW-spread broker (XAUUSD M15 with a 25-pip spread cap requires a low-spread venue, since gold spreads blow out around news), keep the account size to whatever makes the 2% risk comfortable for you, and let the EA work in the active sessions — London and New York, when gold volume and bar bodies are largest, produce the cleanest engulfing patterns. There is no kill-switch, so the trader is the last layer of risk control: monitor the magic-number 22216011 positions and don't override the EA mid-trade.