Pipsgrowth EX18033 TrendFollow

Pipsgrowth EX18033 TrendFollow waits for a fast/slow EMA crossover on the closed bar and then layers three independent bias checks on top of it before any order is sized. The core signal is a 8-period EMA crossing a 21-period EMA on the just-closed candle — long when the fast line is above the slow line at the close of bar 1 and was at or below it on bar 2, short on the mirror image. The crossover alone is not enough. A second 89-period EMA provides a trend-slope bias: if the trend EMA is sloping down over the last two closes, a long crossover is admitted with a confidence score of 20 (the trade is still permitted but the engine is flagging that the bigger timeframe is not aligned). If the trend slope agrees with the signal direction, the engine then runs an inlined Heikin-Ashi color check (input InpUseHeikenFilter, default true) that rebuilds ha_open and ha_close from the previous two bars' open/high/low/close, and rejects the signal when the synthetic candle is the wrong color — that drops confidence to 25. Finally a stateless inlined SuperTrend band (input InpUseSuperTrend, default true, multiplier 2.2 — the 22 in InpSuperTrendMult_x10 is divided by 10 at runtime) is computed as median(high,low) ± 2.2 × ATR(14) on bar 1; if the close is outside the band on the wrong side, the confidence drops to 30. When all three checks clear, the CoreSignal() function returns the original ±1 with confidence set to 70 and the trade is allowed to flow into the confirmation layer.

That confirmation layer is governed by ClassifyRegime() and ConfirmEntry(). The regime classifier reads ADX(14), ATR(14), and the 20-period Bollinger band on the same chart. It compares today's band width to the previous bar's width with a 5 percent expansion / 5 percent compression threshold, and computes an ATR percentile by ranking the current ATR against the prior 50 bars. With ADX ≥ 18 the engine returns REG_EXPAND if the bands are widening, REG_STRONG_TREND if the ATR sits in the top 30 percent of its 50-bar distribution, and REG_WEAK_TREND otherwise. With ADX below 18 it returns REG_COMPRESS, REG_BREAKOUT, REG_RANGE, or REG_CHOPPY depending on the band action and ATR rank. The NoTradeReason() function then flat-blocks the choppy and compress regimes (REG_CHOPPY and REG_COMPRESS_NO_BREAKOUT) before any other gate runs, and ConfirmEntry() demands that the surviving regime be one of REG_STRONG_TREND, REG_WEAK_TREND, REG_BREAKOUT, or REG_EXPAND. The same confirm pass also re-reads the 89-EMA slope over the last 5 bars and verifies the close of bar 1 finished on the correct side of bar 2's close, so a crossover that has already been invalidated by a fast one-bar pullback never reaches the order ticket.

The risk layer is built around a 0.5 percent risk-per-trade figure (InpRiskPercent = 0.5) applied to an effective capital that is normally the full account equity. The cap is technically wired to InpCapitalCapEnabled in the OnTick sizing path, but that flag was removed from the inputs — the comment in the source tells the user to set InpCapitalCapAmount = 0 to disable, and the floor guard in NoTradeReason() still refuses to trade when equity falls below INP_CAP_FLOOR_DOLLARS = 50. The daily loss limit is 3 percent of effective capital, the weekly loss limit is 6 percent (INP_WEEKLY_LOSS_PCT), and a 3-loss counter arms a session-wide cooldown. Lot sizing is the standard pip-distance method: riskMoney / (slDistance / tickSize × tickValue), floored to the lot step, clipped to the lot minimum, and capped at 5.00 lots. Margin is checked with a 1.2× free-margin safety before any send.

Stop loss and take profit are both anchored to the entry price through ATR(14). The SL is placed at 2.0 × ATR (InpATRSLmult) below a buy or above a sell, and the TP is placed at 1:2 reward-to-risk (InpRRtarget = 2.0), so the TP is 4.0 × ATR from entry. The ExecuteEntry() function also forces a minimum broker stop distance using SYMBOL_TRADE_STOPS_LEVEL, and the order is sent as a market order with deviation 20 points through the standard CTrade wrapper, with one retry on REQUOTE / TIMEOUT / PRICE_OFF.

The in-trade management block is identical in structure to other TrendFollow v2.00 EAs but uses a different exit profile. A position that reaches +1R has its stop moved to break-even (open price + stopsPts × point, a one-shot move), and a position that reaches +1.5R has half of the position closed at market (vol/2 normalized to the lot step, only when the residual stays above the broker minimum). After break-even, an ATR trailing stop at 2.5 × ATR(14) (InpATRTrailMult) takes over and only ever ratchets forward — it will not retreat when price pulls back, and it will not step below the original entry price once break-even has armed. A 240-bar time stop (InpMaxBarsInTrade, twenty hours of M5 bars) closes any position that has not produced a profit-locking move. PYRAMID is compiled in but defaulted to off (INP_USE_PYRAMID = false); flipping the constant would allow up to 3 scaled-in entries spaced 1.5 × ATR apart, all of which have to be in profit before another add is allowed. The MAX_OPEN_TRADES cap is 3 (InpMaxConcurrent).

Execution is filtered by a 50-point spread cap (InpMaxSpreadPoints = 50, so 5 pips on a 5-digit XAUUSD quote), a 1-23 server-hour session (INP_SESSION_START_HOUR / INP_SESSION_END_HOUR), weekend and Friday-after-22:00 blocks, and the standard kill switch / dry-run defaults. InpDryRun ships as true, so the EA prints intended orders to the journal but does not send them to the broker until the user turns live execution on. The order comment is "Psgrowth.com Expert_18033" and the magic number is 22218033. The OnTester() function scores the backtest as netProfit × profitFactor / (1 + balance drawdown) with a 30-trade minimum, which is the same family-wide objective used across the TrendFollow v2.00 series.

What to expect in practice: on a clean XAUUSD M5 trend day the EMA cross fires once or twice and the engine rides with the 89-EMA bias, exiting at 1:2R or being trailed out by the 2.5×ATR stop. On a range day the regime classifier drops into REG_RANGE or REG_CHOPPY and NoTradeReason() blocks entries, so the EA sits on its hands until the bands start expanding again. The Magic 22218033 prefix means every position this EA opens is identifiable in the trade history with that exact number, which is the lever to use when reconciling backtest reports against the broker statement.