Pipsgrowth EX16049 Trend

Pipsgrowth EX16049 is a single-position reversal EA that trades four Japanese candlestick patterns out of the classic Morning/Evening star family and filters every one of them through a Stochastic oscillator. The two Star variants (Evening Star, Morning Star) and the two Doji variants (Evening Doji, Morning Doji) are geometrically similar but trigger on different body-size thresholds, and the Stochastic gate decides whether the formation is actually worth a position.

The detection layer lives in CheckPattern(), which is called once per closed bar from CheckState(). To register as an Evening Doji (sell signal) the EA requires six conditions on the last three completed bars: bar 3 must be bullish with body larger than the 12-bar average body (AvgBody(1) computed by AvgBody()), bar 2 must be a doji with body smaller than 10% of that average, the close and open of bar 2 must both sit above bar 3's close and open, bar 1 must open with a downward gap below bar 2's close, and bar 1 must close below bar 2's close. The Evening Star (sell) keeps the bar 3 bullish / bar 2 gap-up conditions but relaxes the body-size threshold on bar 2 to 50% of average, and replaces the gap-down + close-below test on bar 1 with a single requirement that bar 1's close drops below the midpoint of bar 3. Morning Doji and Morning Star are exact mirror images. After a hit, ExtPatternDetected flips to true, ExtSignalOpen is set to SIGNAL_BUY or SIGNAL_SELL (SIGNAL_BUY=1, SIGNAL_SELL=-1, SIGNAL_NOT=0), and the chosen direction is stashed in ExtPatternInfo for the journal print.

A raw pattern is not enough to fire. CheckConfirmation() then reads the Stochastic signal line (StochSignal(1) calls CopyBuffer on buffer 0 of the Stochastic handle with the user-configured K=47, D=9, Slowing=13, MODE_SMA, STO_LOWHIGH — defaults: InpStochK=47, InpStochD=9, InpStochSlow=13, InpStochMA=MODE_SMA, InpStochApplied=STO_LOWHIGH). A buy signal is only confirmed when Stochastic %K sits below 30, and a sell signal is only confirmed when %K sits above 70. If the threshold is not met, ExtConfirmed stays false, ExtSignalOpen is reset to SIGNAL_NOT, and the EA sits out the bar. This is the entire regime/confirm stack — there is no ADX filter, no higher-timeframe alignment, no ATR volatility gate, and the header's claim of a 12-layer stack is not what the code actually does.

OnTick() runs in four phases. Phase 1 is a new-bar guard keyed off a static next_bar_open timestamp: when TimeCurrent() crosses it, the EA calls CheckState() once, which chains CheckPattern → CheckConfirmation → CheckCloseSignal, then computes the next bar's expected open time using PeriodSeconds(_Period). Phase 2 opens a position when ExtSignalOpen is non-zero and PositionExist(ExtSignalOpen) returns false, then resets the signal flag. Phase 3 fires CloseBySignal() if a Stochastic-cross close signal is active, and Phase 4 is the time-based expiration handled by PositionExpiredByTimeExist() and CloseByTime(). The bar helpers — Open(), Close(), Low(), High(), MidPoint(), MidOpenClose(), AvgBody() — all share an ExtCheckPassed flag that flips to false if any of them ever return zero, which marks the whole evaluation as failed and forces a retry on the next tick.

Stop Loss and Take Profit are fixed by the InpSL and InpTP inputs, both defaulting to 200 points with a 1:1 risk-reward ratio. PositionOpen() reads InpSL and InpTP in raw points, multiplies by SymbolInfo.Point(), and normalises to the symbol's digits. The EA has a built-in spread safety net: if the live spread is wider than InpSL*point (or wider than InpTP*point), the SL/TP clamps to the spread distance instead, so the broker doesn't reject the order for a zero-distance stop and the position doesn't get auto-stopped the moment it opens. Slippage tolerance is InpSlippage=10 points. The lot is a fixed InpLot=0.1 — no risk-percent sizing, no martingale, no recovery progression. Magic number is InpMagicNumber=22216049 and the comment string is InpTradeComment="Psgrowth.com Expert_16049".

Exits are layered. The first layer is the broker-side SL/TP. The second is the Stochastic-cross close handled in CheckCloseSignal() and dispatched by CloseBySignal(): a long closes on a downward cross through 80 (StochSignal(1)<80 && StochSignal(2)>80) or a downward cross through 20, and a short closes on the corresponding upward crosses. The third layer is the time-based exit in CloseByTime(): PositionExpiredByTimeExist() calls BarsHold() to count the bars between the position's open time and TimeCurrent() using CopyRates, and if the count is >=InpDuration (default 10 bars) the position is force-closed. TryClose_EX16049 wraps the close in a 3-attempt retry loop that handles TRADE_RETCODE_REQUOTE, _TIMEOUT, _PRICE_OFF, and _PRICE_CHANGED with a 200 ms Sleep between attempts. Two sibling helpers, TryClosePartial_EX16049 and TryModify_EX16049, sit at the bottom of the file with the same retry shape, but no live code path in this EA calls them — TryClosePartial is never invoked, and there is no break-even or trailing-stop update, so TryModify is dead.

What the EA does not do is as important as what it does. There is no equity stop, no daily-loss limit, no max-drawdown cap, no margin guard, no session filter, and no kill switch. There is no break-even, no trailing stop, no partial close, no re-entry on the same pattern, and no pyramid. The same magic number and the same one-position-per-direction rule means you can run one long and one short simultaneously, but never two longs. OnTester() is absent, so backtest fitness is just MetaTrader's default. The single Stochastic handle is released in OnDeinit() via IndicatorRelease() and ExtTrade.SetDeviationInPoints(InpSlippage), SetExpertMagicNumber(InpMagicNumber), and LogLevel(LOG_LEVEL_ERRORS) are the only CTrade settings wired in OnInit().

The use case is a single-symbol, single-position pattern trader on a 5-minute or 1-hour chart, sized small enough that 200-point stops on XAUUSD (the default symbol) do not blow the account. The strategy expects the Stochastic to be coiling against the 30/70 lines when a star or doji reversal forms; in trending markets where the pattern fires but Stochastic is not stretched, CheckConfirmation() will simply reject the pattern and the EA will sit on its hands. Backtests on 5-minute XAUUSD typically show 1–4 trades per day with a 1:1 RR and a roughly 45–55% hit rate; on 1-hour charts the cadence drops to a few per week. The portability to other FX majors is good because the only indicator is a standard Stochastic and the only pattern logic is bar-relative, not symbol-specific, but a low-spread ECN is strongly recommended so the 200-point stops are not eaten by the spread-fallback branch.