Pipsgrowth EX18036 TrendFollow

Pipsgrowth EX18036 TrendFollow turns a smoothed-candle pattern into a structured trend trade on XAUUSD at the M5 cadence. The signal core is the Heikin-Ashi Smoothed construction, not a plain Heikin-Ashi overlay. The EA first runs four independent SMMA(InpMaPeriod=6) passes on OHLC separately, then feeds the smoothed open, high, low, and close into the standard Heikin-Ashi recursion: haClose = (o+h+l+c)/4, haOpen = (prevHaOpen + prevHaClose)/2. Because the inputs are pre-smoothed, every HAS bar filters out a layer of one-tick noise and leaves a slower, structurally meaningful candle sequence behind. The signal in HasSignal() is a pure color-flip: a bar that prints green (haClose > haOpen) after a red bar returns +1 with confidence 65; the mirror red-after-green returns -1 with the same confidence. When there is no flip but the closed bar shows a strong body — body/range above 0.7 — the EA treats the move as a continuation, returns +1/-1 with confidence 55, and still proceeds. Anything else returns 0 and the EA sits out that bar.

A trade never opens on signal alone. TryEntry() re-checks the no-trade gate (NoTrade()) and then asks HtfTrendAgrees() whether price is on the right side of the H1 EMA(50). A long signal needs bid above the H1 EMA(50); a short signal needs bid below. This higher-timeframe agreement is what filters HAS flips that occur against the dominant multi-hour trend. Only after both pass does the EA build the order. The SL distance is InpAtrSlMult × ATR(14) (default 2.0), and the TP is InpRR × slDist (default 1.5), which gives the 1:1.5 reward-to-risk geometry the strategy is built around. Sizing flows through CalcLot() against effective capital, then is rounded down to the symbol's volume step and clamped to the broker min/max.

Risk management is layered. The capital cap, with InpCapAmount=0 in the default profile, returns full account equity as effective capital; the InpCapFloor=$50 stops new entries when equity drops below that line. RealizedPnLSince() scans the deal history for the past 24 hours and past 7 days to enforce InpDailyLossPct=3% and InpWeeklyLossPct=6%. A loss counter g_consecLosses increments in OnTradeTransaction() whenever a closing deal for this magic comes back negative; at three in a row NoTrade() returns 'cooldown after losses' and the EA flat-lines entries until the next non-loss resets the count. The max-concurrent gate is InpMaxConcurrent=3 and PyramidAllowed() is compiled but disabled by default (InpPyramidEnabled=false), so on a clean chart this EA is strictly a one-position-per-direction, max-three bot. The session gate runs from InpSessionStart=7 to InpSessionEnd=20 in broker time, with the weekend block, a 60-point spread cap on the XAUUSD quote, and the global kill switch as the final three no-trade filters.

The regime layer is the most demanding part of the code. RegimeClassify() pulls ADX(14), ATR(14), and BB(20,2) buffers, then runs a 50-bar ATR percentile back-window to score how stretched current volatility is. Bollinger width is compared bar-to-bar (current vs prior) to detect expansion or compression. The state machine has seven outcomes: STRONG_TREND when ADX is at or above 25 and ATR-percentile is at or above 60; WEAK_TREND when ADX is at or above 20; COMPRESS when Bollinger width is contracting against the prior bar and ATR-percentile is below 30; EXPAND when width is expanding and ATR-percentile is at or above 60; BREAKOUT when width is expanding without the high-vol tag; CHOPPY when ADX drops below 15; and RANGE as the fallback. Only CHOPPY is hard-blocked by the entry gate — the other states trade, but the comment line in the header calls out that regime transitions are intended to be observed rather than always hard-blocked. The seven-state classifier gives the EA room to act across both high-conviction trends and quiet ranges without forcing a single state, which is the point of the per-state design.

Position management runs on every tick. ManageExits() walks the open positions in reverse and applies four layers in order. First, an opposite-signal close — when the latest closed-bar HAS flips the other way, the EA calls TryClose_EX18036() with a three-attempt retry loop (200ms backoff on requote, timeout, price-off, or price-changed). Second, a break-even: once profit distance exceeds 1R, the stop ratchets to open+2pt via TryModify_EX18036() (3 attempts, 100ms backoff). Third, an ATR trail: as price moves in profit, the stop is re-anchored to current minus/plus InpTrailAtrMult × ATR(14) (default 2.5×), always forward-only, never back. Fourth, a hard TP close when price hits the take-profit level. There is no time-based exit in ManageExits — the trade is held until SL, TP, trail, BE-anchored stop, or an opposite HAS flip. The retry helper loops are narrow: TryClosePartial_EX18036() and TryModify_EX18036() both retry three times on the same price-side retcodes; the rest of the stack assumes the broker's first response is canonical.

On the practical side, the OnTester() function evaluates a backtest with the formula (netProfit × profitFactor) / (1 + relativeDrawdownPercent) and discards any run with fewer than 30 trades, which means a tester pass with five or ten well-shaped trades cannot game the score. Order comments hardcode 'Psgrowth.com Expert_18036', filling mode is auto-detected between FOK, IOC, and RETURN, and OrderCalcMargin runs before the send so the EA refuses to open a position it cannot afford. The recommended deployment is a low-spread ECN or RAW account on XAUUSD with the default input set; the 60-point spread gate makes a wide-spread dealing desk a non-starter. The 7-20 server-time session is broad enough to cover London through the New York morning, and the $50 capital floor plus the loss-count cooldown together put a hard ceiling on how many bad entries can stack in a single trading day.