Pipsgrowth EX18065 TrendFollow

Pipsgrowth EX18065 TrendFollow is a pullback-entry trend EA built around the idea that a moving-average cross only tells you the trend direction — the actual entry happens on the next retest of the slow MA, after price has pulled back to the line and bounced. Instead of chasing the crossover bar (which usually enters mid-extension and gets stopped on the inevitable pullback), the EA waits for the pullback to actually arrive and then triggers when price touches the slow MA, the trigger candle closes in the trend direction, and a short RSI filter confirms the bounce is not overbought or oversold. The default MA pair is a 21-period EMA against a 55-period EMA on the working timeframe, with the MA method itself configurable (EMA, SMA, SMMA, LWMA).

The signal logic is the only part of the EA that fires intrabar. ComputeSignal() reads the previous two closed bars of the fast and slow MAs, the most recent RSI(14) value, and the current ATR(14). It then checks three things at once: (1) the MA stack must be bullish (fast > slow) for longs or bearish (fast < slow) for shorts, (2) the previous bar's close must come within ATR × InpRetestATRMult (default 0.5) of the slow MA — this is the 'touched the slow line' condition, and (3) the trigger candle must close in the trend direction (close > open for long, close < open for short). The RSI gate is a directional bias filter, not an extreme: long entries require RSI >= 45 (a configured InpRSIBuyMin), short entries require RSI <= 55 (InpRSISellMax). When all four conditions line up, the EA assigns a confidence score in the 50–100 range based on how cleanly the price tested the slow MA and how decisively RSI leans the trend direction, then arms an entry for the next tick on that bar.

The regime layer, computed once per bar in ComputeRegime(), runs a 6-state classifier on the previous bar's ADX(14), ATR(14) percentile, and Bollinger Band width. The thresholds are explicit: ADX >= 25 with an ATR-percentile > 60 puts the market in STRONG_TREND; the same ADX with ATR-percentile <= 60 is WEAK_TREND; ADX < 25 with ATR-percentile >= 80 is EXPAND (volatility breakout conditions); ATR-percentile <= 20 with a Bollinger-width ratio below 3.0 is COMPRESS; ATR-percentile <= 40 (with everything else moderate) is RANGE; and anything else falls into CHOPPY. Entries are blocked in CHOPPY and COMPRESS, so the EA refuses to fire a pullback trade when the slow MA is just being whipped around — the exact environment where the retest entry would get stopped out.

The confirmation step requires the higher-timeframe MA to agree. ConfirmEntry() reads an H1 EMA(55) (the InpHTF input defaults to 8 which maps to PERIOD_H1, and the period matches the slow MA on the working TF) and refuses a long if the previous H1 close is below the H1 EMA, or a short if it is above. The spread cap of 50 points (InpMaxSpreadPoints) is re-verified at this stage, not just at the risk layer, to catch the case where spread blew out between the bar open and the entry attempt. After confirmation, the SL and TP are derived from the previous bar's ATR(14): stop distance is ATR × 2.0, target distance is ATR × 3.0, giving a fixed 1:1.5 R:R that the EA enforces via a min-R:R gate (InpMinRRx = 15, where 15 means 1.5 R:R — adjusting the SL or TP multiplier below this threshold causes PreTradeRiskOK to reject the trade with reason RR_TOO_LOW).

The position-management stack is what holds the EA together once a trade is live. ManageInTrade() runs on every tick and applies three independent mechanisms. First, a one-shot break-even at 1R: once bid (for longs) or ask (for shorts) reaches entry + 1R, the stop is moved to entry (adjusted for the broker's SYMBOL_TRADE_STOPS_LEVEL), locking the trade at scratch. Second, a partial take-profit at 1R: 50% of the position (InpPartialTP1Pct) is closed at the same 1R trigger, converting the runner into a free option. Third, a forward-only ATR trail at 1.5 × ATR(14) (InpTrailATRMult) that only ratchets the stop in the profitable direction and only when the new stop is above the broker's stop-level minimum. All three modify calls go through TryModify_EX18065(), which retries up to three times on requote/timeout/price-changed with 100ms between attempts, so a momentary quote glitch will not leave a position with a stale stop.

The exit conditions are the regime flip, the opposite-signal flip, the time stop, and an optional session close. CheckExits() runs at the start of every new bar. It closes the position if the new bar's signal direction is opposite to the position (e.g. a short-signal-bar appearing while a long is open), if the regime has flipped to CHOPPY or COMPRESS (the EA trusts the regime classifier more than any single pullback signal), if the trade has been open for InpMaxBarsInTrade bars (200 by default, which is roughly 16 hours on M5), or — if the user enables InpExitAtSessionEnd — within the last hour before the configured session end hour. The trade lifecycle is enforced one-shot per bar: g_lastEntryBar prevents the EA from entering twice on the same bar even if both the signal and the confirmation clear, and the original entry is only ever sent through SendOrder() after TryClose_EX18065() / TryModify_EX18065() verify the modification path with their 3-attempt retry loops for requote and price-change conditions.

The risk budget is the final gate. PreTradeRiskOK() refuses to send any order unless the daily loss is below 3% of the effective capital, the weekly loss is below 6%, the effective capital is above the $50 floor (InpCapitalCapFloor), spread is below 50 points, the trade is inside the server-time session window (default 07:00–20:59, weekends blocked), the manual news window is not active, the EA's global kill switch is off, the maximum-open-trades cap is not reached, the lot sizing produces a value at or above the symbol's minimum lot, and OrderCalcMargin confirms the account has the free margin. Sizing is a fixed-fractional 0.5% risk of the effective capital divided by the per-tick loss of the configured stop distance, normalized to the broker's lot step, with a 0.10-lot fixed fallback (InpLotsFixed) if the calculated size rounds below the minimum lot. CooldownLosses=3 means after three consecutive closed-out losses the EA pauses for three bars before the next entry attempt; the EA also defaults to InpDryRun=true, so on a fresh install the logs will show '[DRY-RUN] BUY lots=0.10 ...' lines for every signal without any real order hitting the broker, which makes the first 24 hours of forward testing safe to run unattended.