Pipsgrowth EX18044 TrendFollow

Pipsgrowth EX18044 HA2 reads trend direction off smoothed Heikin-Ashi candle flips on a five-minute chart, then runs each candidate signal through three independent confirmation filters and a seven-state regime classifier before a single order is fired. The whole point of building on Heikin-Ashi rather than raw candles is noise reduction: the smoothed open and close compress the inside-bar and doji clutter that would otherwise trigger a flood of false flips on metals. The EA rebuilds the Heikin-Ashi series in place via ComputeHeikinAshi() over 300 bars (HA_BARS_USED) using the standard recursive formula: HA-close is the average of the four OHLC values, HA-open is the average of the previous HA-open and HA-close. The signal logic in SignalHA() only watches the last two closed bars (g_haClose[1] > g_haOpen[1] versus g_haClose[2] > g_haOpen[2]) and emits a +1 long or -1 short when the colour flips from one bar to the next, returning a fixed confidence of 55 (the EA treats the HA flip as a baseline-strength signal, not a graded score).

Before a flip is allowed to become an order it must clear three independent trend filters. First, the inline Hull Moving Average built by HullValue() from weighted moving averages of half-period 11 and full-period 21 — the slope between the current and previous closed bar is read by HullSlopeDir(), and a long is rejected if the Hull slope is pointing down, a short if pointing up. Second, the EMA(50) bias is read in EMATrendDir() from the close of the closed bar against the M5 EMA: a long requires close above EMA(50), a short requires close below. Third, when InpUseMACDConfirm is true (default), MACDHistDir() reads the MACD(12,26,9) histogram on the closed bar and refuses any long when the histogram is negative or any short when it is positive. All three filters are required — a partial pass exits the tick with a SKIP log line and no order.

The HTF confirmation is bolted on as a fourth hard gate inside NoTradeReason(). When InpRequireHTF is on, HTFDir() reads the EMA(50) on H1 (EMA_HTF_TIMEFRAME = PERIOD_H1) and the H1 close: a long is rejected if the H1 EMA is above the H1 close, and a short is rejected if the H1 EMA is below it. This is the only HTF check in the EA; everything else runs on M5.

A seven-state regime classifier runs every tick before signal processing. ClassifyRegime() sorts the last 200 ATR(14) values and the last 200 Bollinger-band-width values into percentile ranks (ATR_PCT_LOOKBACK = 200, BB_PERIOD = 20, BB_DEVIATION = 2.0). The seven states are STRONG_TREND (ADX≥28 and ATR-percentile≥0.70), WEAK_TREND (ADX≥20), EXPAND (BB-width-percentile≥0.75), BREAKOUT (BB-width-percentile≥0.45), COMPRESS (BB-width-percentile≤0.30), CHOPPY (ADX<10), and RANGE. STRONG_TREND and WEAK_TREND permit entries; CHOPPY and COMPRESS force-close open positions in ManagePositions(); the other states are admitted but watched.

Risk and order handling live in DoEntry(). Stop distance is 1.8× the ATR(14) of the closed bar (SL_ATR_MULT = 1.8), take-profit distance is 2.0× that, giving a fixed 1:2.22 R:R envelope that exceeds the EA's MIN_RR_RATIO floor of 1.3. Both distances are clamped to at least 1.05× the broker's stops-level price so the order never gets rejected for being too close. ComputeLot() sizes the position so the dollar risk equals InpRiskPercent (0.5% of effective capital) divided by the per-lot risk at the chosen SL distance, normalised to the symbol's volume step. OrderCalcMargin() runs before the send, and the order is aborted with INSUFFICIENT MARGIN if the required margin exceeds free margin. The whole send path is wrapped by SendOpen() which retries twice on TRADE_RETCODE_REQUOTE, TRADE_RETCODE_TIMEOUT, and TRADE_RETCODE_PRICE_OFF, sleeping 150ms between attempts before falling back to a OPEN FAIL log line.

Once a position is open, ManagePositions() does the work on every tick. Break-even is one-shot at 1.0R (BE_TRIGGER_R_MULT = 1.0) — the stop is moved to open ± max(stopsLevel, 0.05×ATR), but only if the new stop is actually above the current stop and the distance to current price still exceeds the stops level. The first partial close fires at 1.0R as well (PARTIAL_TP_R_MULT = 1.0) and books 50% of the position (PARTIAL_TP_PERCENT = 50), but only when the remaining volume would still be at least 2× the symbol's volume minimum. After the partial, an ATR-trailing stop (TRAIL_ATR_MULT = 3.0) is updated forward-only on every tick. The trailing distance is also clamped to 1.05× the stops level. Three exit paths close the position entirely: an opposite Heikin-Ashi flip (read again from SignalHA()), a time exit at 240 bars (MAX_HOLD_BARS = 240), and a regime-change exit when g_regime flips to CHOPPY or COMPRESS. Each exit path is invoked through CloseTicket(), which retries three times on requote or timeout before giving up.

Portfolio-level caps are checked both at entry and during management. The daily loss limit (InpDailyLossLimitPct = 3.0) and weekly loss limit (InpWeeklyLossLimitPct = 6.0) are measured against the realised PnL of this magic number, walked from the deal history by MagicRealizedPnLToday() and MagicRealizedPnLThisWeek(). A capital cap row remains in the inputs (InpCapitalCapAmount defaulted to 0, InpCapitalCapFloor = 50), but the original enable flag was removed in v2.00 — the cap is effectively off, and the $50 floor still blocks new entries below it. InpMaxConcurrent = 1 and InpMaxSymbolExposure = 1 mean the EA never stacks a second ticket on the same symbol. Cooldown (InpCooldownAfterLoss = 3) is bar-aware: UpdateLossTracking() watches closed deals at 30-second intervals, increments g_consecLosses on each realised loss, resets to zero on the first win, and InCooldown() returns true until at least one new bar opens after the third loss.

The session and event gates are simple. InSession() blocks Saturdays and Sundays entirely and only allows entries between 7:00 and 20:00 broker-server time. InNewsWindow() calls CalendarValueHistory() for the ±15-minute window around the current time and blocks entries when at least one event with CALENDAR_IMPORTANCE_HIGH is present — this is the MQL5 native economic-calendar path, not a hard-coded time list. SpreadPoints() rejects any tick where the live spread exceeds 30 points (SPREAD_MAX_POINTS = 30). The kill switch (InpKillSwitch) sits at the top of NoTradeReason() and disables every new entry without touching the open-position management path. InpDryRun defaults to true and routes every order and every modify through the PrintFormat("[DRYRUN] ...") path so the EA can be validated in the strategy tester without any live exposure.

The indicator stack runs at six handles: ADX(14), ATR(14), EMA(50) on the M5 timeframe, EMA(50) on the H1 timeframe, MACD(12,26,9) on close, and Bollinger Bands(20,2) on close. The OnTester() criterion is the family standard (net * profitFactor) / (1 + balance_dd_percent) with a 30-trade floor below which the optimisation pass returns 0. TryClose_EX18044(), TryClosePartial_EX18044(), and TryModify_EX18044() each run three retries on requote, timeout, price-off, and price-changed with 200ms / 200ms / 100ms sleeps respectively. The order comment is hard-coded to Psgrowth.com Expert_18044, and every position is tagged with the magic 22218044 so multiple instances of the EA on the same account can be told apart in the deal history. EX18044 is built for the same environment as the rest of the TrendFollow line — XAUUSD M5 on a low-spread ECN — but the indicator set is small enough that it also runs on FX majors without code changes.