Pipsgrowth EX18081 TrendFollow

EX18081 is the M1 scalper of the EX18 TrendFollow family. Where its siblings like EX18075 build five-minute trend stacks and EX18079 layers Hull triplets with Gaussian bands, EX18081 is a pure M1 color-flip machine: a single Hull moving average on the chart timeframe, computed inline, painted lime when its current value sits above the previous bar's value and red when it sits below. The trade idea is brutally simple — when the Hull flips color, ride the flip until the next flip or the stop. Everything else in the file is plumbing that decides whether to let the flip through.

The Hull itself is built without any indicator handle. The UpdateHullMA() function pulls period + sqrt(period) + 5 close prices from the broker, computes a linearly weighted moving average of the first half = floor(period/2) bars and another LWMA over the full period bars, and stores 2 * WMA(half) - WMA(full) for each of the last three bars in g_hullValue[0..2]. The comment in source flags this as the simplified form: the textbook Hull would then take a third WMA of the raw values over sqrt(period) bars, but EX18081 skips that smoothing step on purpose because the slimmer line reacts faster on a one-minute chart. The price source is user-selectable through InpHullPrice (1=close, 2=open, 3=high, 4=low, 5=median, 6=typical, 7=weighted), so the same engine can be tuned from a momentum-style weighted reading down to a pure close-to-close reaction.

Direction is just g_hullValue[0] > g_hullValue[1] for bullish and the inverse for bearish, and the signal fires only on a flip — GetSignal() returns 1 when g_prevDirection != 1 && g_hullDirection == 1, returns -1 on the mirror flip, and returns 0 on every other tick. That single binary output then has to clear five independent gates in CheckMarketFilters() before OpenPosition() is allowed to run.

The first gate is ADX. With InpUseADXFilter=true (the default) and InpADXPeriod=14, the EA copies two bars of the ADX main buffer and requires the current reading to be at or above InpADXThreshold=20. A separate InpUseADXRising input, off by default, additionally requires g_lastADX > prevADX to block entries at exhaustion points where the trend is already rolling over. The second gate is the ATR volatility filter, disabled by default — when turned on, it requires the current ATR(14) to be at least InpMinATRMult=0.8 times the 50-bar ATR average, so a market that has gone to sleep relative to its own recent history gets frozen out. The third gate is the range filter, which is on by default: it averages the high-low range of the last InpRangeBars=5 closed candles and compares that average to the current ATR. A range-ATR ratio above InpRangeMaxATR=3.0 trips the ✗NEWS branch (candle bodies are too fat, probably an event release) and a ratio below InpRangeMinATR=0.15 trips the ✗CHOP branch (price is dead, every flip is noise). The fourth gate is a price-distance from Hull filter, off by default at InpMaxPriceDistATR=0; when raised, it caps how far the bid can stray from g_hullValue[0] in ATR multiples — a way to refuse entries where the candle has already sprinted away from the line. The fifth and last gate is a hard spread check: (int)SymbolInfoInteger(_Symbol, SYMBOL_SPREAD) > InpMaxSpread immediately returns false and refuses the signal without a Print, so any tick where the broker widens past 20 points (2.0 pips on a five-digit feed) is a no-trade regardless of what the Hull is doing.

Once a signal clears all five gates, OpenPosition() sizes the trade from CalculateLot(). With InpUseAutoLot=true (the default) the lot comes from balance * 0.5% / (InpStopLoss * SYMBOL_TRADE_TICK_VALUE), floored to the symbol's lot step, and capped between the broker's min/max lot and InpMaxLotSize=5.0. The 0.5% default is the conservative end of the family; turning InpUseAutoLot off falls back to a fixed InpInitialLot=0.01. The order goes out with trade.PositionOpen(), the magic 22218081, the comment Psgrowth.com Expert_18081, and the broker's filling mode auto-detected from SYMBOL_FILLING_MODE (FOK preferred, then IOC, then RETURN).

Management runs every tick on every open position, before the new-bar logic. ManagePositions() handles two upgrade paths. The first is breakeven: once profit in points crosses InpBEStart=100, the stop is moved to openPrice + InpBEOffset * point (10 points above entry by default) — a small locked-in offset that covers spread and commission on the way out. The second is the trailing ratchet, which only activates once profit clears InpTrailStart=150 and then walks the stop to bid - InpTrailDistance * point for buys and the mirror for sells; it only ever tightens, never loosens, and it never fires before the breakeven threshold is met. Both moves go through TryModify_EX18081(), a three-attempt wrapper that retries on TRADE_RETCODE_REQUOTE, _TIMEOUT, _PRICE_OFF, and _PRICE_CHANGED with 100ms sleeps.

Two more exit paths sit on top of the bracket. CheckOppositeSignal(), gated by InpCloseOnOpposite=true, watches g_hullDirection and force-closes any open position the moment the Hull flips to the opposite color — the rationale is that the entry was a color-flip, so the original thesis is dead the moment the color flips back. CheckSwingExit() looks at the last InpSwingBars=5 closed candles and force-closes a long if the current bid prints below the lowest low in that window (or a short if the ask prints above the highest high), unless the ADX is still in a strong-trend regime above InpSwingIgnoreADX=30. The single-position cap is enforced inside the OnTick logic: buyCount == 0 for buys and sellCount == 0 for sells, so the EA never pyramids and never holds both sides. If an opposite-direction signal arrives while a position is open, the existing one is force-closed with g_closeReason = "NEW" before the new one is sent, so the position book always reads at most one ticket per symbol.

Safety is layered on top of all of that. CheckDrawdownLimits() ratchets g_equityPeak up on every tick and blocks the rest of the EA when either the daily loss from g_dailyStartBalance hits InpMaxDailyLoss=5.0% or the drawdown from peak hits InpMaxEquityLoss=10.0%. CheckTimeFilter() is off by default (InpUseTimeFilter=false) but, when enabled, blocks weekends, blocks Friday trading if InpTradeFriday=false, force-closes everything at InpFridayCloseHour=20 on Friday, and rejects ticks outside the InpStartHour=8 to InpEndHour=20 server window. UpdateDailyStats() resets g_dailyStartBalance at the first tick of each new server day so the daily loss measurement matches the broker's day boundary. The visuals are: a colored Hull line drawn as 100 OBJ_TREND segments (lime when rising, red when falling, yellow on ties), and a single-line info panel in the top-left showing the trend label, the live Hull value, the live ADX, the position counts, and the filter pass/fail string with ✓/✗ glyphs. Both are skipped during optimization and tester runs to keep the backtest fast. There is no OnTester formula in source — the EA relies on MT5's standard pass/fail statistics for genetic optimization.

For a backtest, the practical expectation is tens of trades per session day on a quiet M1 USDJPY feed and three or four times that on XAUUSD, with the bulk filtered out by the range and ADX gates. The 1:2 risk-reward (20-point stop, 40-point target) means a 45–50% win rate on a fixed-target basis is roughly the breakeven point before spread, and the swing exit can convert what would have been a stop-loss into a smaller scratch if the candles whipsaw back through. The EA does not call OnTester and does not carry a custom fitness function, so genetic optimization should be run with the standard custom-max criterion and a wide pass range over the Hull period (15 to 30) and ADX threshold (15 to 30).