Pipsgrowth EX18047 TrendFollow

EX18047 TrendFollow reads a sequence of inline-computed Heikin-Ashi candles on the M5 chart and only acts when the last N closed HA bars all print the same color. The default InpHABars is 3, meaning the EA waits for three consecutive bullish HA bars to consider a long, or three consecutive bearish HA bars to consider a short. The Heikin-Ashi transformation is built from scratch in ComputeSignal() — it walks InpHABars+2 raw OHLC bars, seeds the oldest bar with a (O+C)/2 open and a 4-price close, then propagates each subsequent HA candle with haC = (O+H+L+C)/4 and haO = (haO_prev + haC_prev)/2, clipping haH to MathMax(rawH, haO, haC) and haL to MathMin(rawL, haO, haC). The HA color is therefore a smoothed consensus of the underlying OHLC bodies and is far less twitchy than raw price action. Bullish continuation requires haC > haO on every one of the last InpHABars closed bars; bearish continuation requires haC < haO on every one of them. A neutral result (mixed colors) yields sig = 0 and the bar is skipped.

Before the HA vote can arm a trade, EX18047 demands agreement from a 4-condition confirmation panel. Condition 1 is MACD momentum: for a long, the closed-bar main line (fast EMA 12, slow EMA 26, signal 9 on close) must be above the signal line AND above its own prior value (macdM1 > macdS1 && macdM1 > macdM2); for a short, the main line must be below the signal line AND below its own prior value. Condition 2 is an RSI band: longs need RSI(14) between 45 and 75, shorts need RSI between 25 and 55 — the bands are deliberately asymmetric to keep momentum trades away from exhaustion zones. Condition 3 is HTF agreement: the H1 EMA(50) (hHTFEMA on PERIOD_H1) is compared to the Ask price for longs or the Bid for shorts, and price must be on the correct side of the hourly EMA. Condition 4 is a basic ADX floor of 15 to ensure the move is directional. The EA requires at least 3 of these 4 to vote yes; the count is exposed as a 0–100 confidence value (votes × 25) but is informational only — entries fire on the 3-vote threshold.

Above the signal layer, DetectRegime() classifies each closed bar into one of seven regimes by combining ADX(14), an ATR-percentile rank (InpATRPctLookback = 50 bars), and a Bollinger-Bands width ratio on a (20, 2.0) BB. The seven labels are REG_STRONG_TREND (ADX ≥ 20 AND percentile ≥ 0.6), REG_WEAK_TREND (ADX ≥ 14), REG_EXPAND (percentile ≥ 0.8 AND width ratio ≥ 1.1), REG_BREAKOUT (percentile ≥ 0.7), REG_COMPRESS (percentile ≤ 0.25 AND width ratio ≤ 0.7), REG_RANGE (ADX < 15), and REG_CHOPPY (the catch-all). Only the first four regimes permit entries — a HA vote inside REG_COMPRESS, REG_RANGE, or REG_CHOPPY is vetoed by BlockedByNoTrade().

Risk and trade management follow a fixed R:R structure. SL distance is InpATRSlMult × ATR(14) = 2.0 × ATR by default; TP distance is InpATRTpMult × ATR(14) = 3.0 × ATR, which is a hardcoded 1:1.5 risk/reward. Position sizing in SizeByRisk() converts the InpRiskPercent = 0.5% risk budget into a lot count via tick value and tick size, then clamps it to the broker's LotsMin/LotsMax/LotsStep, and finally checks OrderCalcMargin against 90% of free margin to avoid margin-short rejections. A 4-hour cooldown is engaged after InpCooldownLosses = 3 consecutive closed losses; the timer is enforced inside OnTick by checking TimeCurrent() against g_cooldownUntil. A daily 3% loss limit and a weekly 6% limit (computed as 2 × daily inside BlockedByLossLimits) shut entries off for the remainder of the period, with both PnL sums walked from the DEAL_MAGIC-filtered history.

Active trade management is performed on every tick in ManagePositions(). When a position reaches 1R of profit (InpBETriggerR = 1.0), a one-shot break-even adjustment moves SL to open ± minDist, where minDist is the broker's StopsLevel in points. At the same 1R threshold, a 50% partial close (InpPartialRatio = 0.5) is executed once per ticket — the partial is gated by a per-position 'PT1' flag held in a 64-slot in-memory array because MT5 has no native per-position tag. After the BE trigger fires, an ATR trail activates: newSL = price - max(atrCur × InpTrailStepR, minDist) for longs, mirrored for shorts, with advancement-only logic so the stop never moves backwards. Three hard exits also run from ManagePositions(): a 200-bar time stop (barsHeld ≥ 200, hardcoded inside the function with no input), an opposite-signal exit (ComputeSignal returns the opposite direction), and a regime-flip exit that closes the position if RegimeNow() returns REG_CHOPPY on the current closed bar.

The no-trade gate also enforces practical trading hygiene: the spread is measured in pips via PipSize() (which multiplies the broker point by 10 on 3- or 5-digit symbols) and rejected above InpMaxSpreadPips = 3.0; server-side hour gates block trading from 22:00 to 00:59, on Saturday and Sunday, and on Friday after 22:00; and SYMBOL_TRADE_MODE_FULL, TERMINAL_TRADE_ALLOWED, and MQL_TRADE_ALLOWED are all required to be true. InpDryRun defaults to true — orders print to the journal as 'DRY-RUN BUY/SELL' with the would-be price, SL and TP, but no tickets are sent. InpKillSwitch is a hard panic: when flipped to true, OnTick short-circuits to HandleKillSwitch(), which iterates the magic/symbol-matched positions and force-closes them.

The version 2.00 source contains a small but worth-knowing quirk: the OnInit() block references an input named InpCapEnabled (lines 210–212), but the input group only declares InpCapAmount and InpCapFloor — the InpCapEnabled row was removed from the input block. The compiler accepts the result because the symbol resolves through MQL's tolerant handling, but the capital-allocation-cap feature is effectively dead in the runtime. EffectiveCapital() therefore always returns raw account equity, and the $50 InpCapFloor is still enforced. For backtests, OnTester uses a 90-day window with a 30-trade floor and returns (netProfit × profitFactor) / (1 + relativeBalanceDD%) as the fitness value. The trade comment is hardcoded to 'Psgrowth.com Expert_18047' and execution retries each trade, partial close, and SL/TP modification up to 3 times with a 200ms (close) or 100ms (modify) sleep between attempts on requote/timeout/price-change responses.

In practical use, EX18047 is a M5 single-position XAUUSD scalper aimed at medium-volatility sessions, with the HA smoothing acting as the de facto noise filter and the 7-state regime acting as the de facto trend filter. Because MAX_OPEN_TRADES = 1 and the cooldown timer is 4 hours, the EA will not revenge-trade through a chop session — once three losers land in a row, the EA is parked until the cooldown expires. The 200-bar ceiling on time-in-trade (about 16.5 hours on M5) bounds the worst case for a position that drifts, and the 50% partial at 1R means a winning trade has at least banked its risk budget before the ATR trail takes over.