Pipsgrowth EX18086 TrendFollow

EX18086 TrendFollow is a deliberately thin Expert Advisor. It does not compute its own indicators, draw its own regimes, or invent its own money rules. Instead, the source wires the three standard MQL5 base classes — CExpert, CSignalMA, and CTrailingMA — together inside OnInit(), then forwards every market event to ExtExpert.OnTick(). The entire trade lifecycle is delegated to the MQL5 Standard Library, which is exactly why the .mq5 itself is short and why a trader should pay attention to the parameters the EA exposes rather than to the size of its source file.

The signal engine is a single moving average. CSignalMA evaluates three checks on the closed bar: the MA must be in the correct trend direction (rising for longs, falling for shorts), the close must sit on the correct side of the MA, and the MA value at a configurable shift must be on the same side of the filter line. EX18086 configures this signal with Inp_Signal_MA_Period=12, Inp_Signal_MA_Shift=6, Inp_Signal_MA_Method=MODE_SMA, and g_Inp_Signal_MA_Applied=PRICE_CLOSE. The shift=6 value is the most consequential: the EA looks at the MA value six bars ago as the trend reference rather than the most recent bar. That delay filters out MA micro-wobbles — a 6-bar-old SMA(12) is a stable trend proxy — but it costs entry timing. The trade opens later than a zero-shift signal, which is the trade-off baked into the strategy.

Trailing is the heart of this EA. CTrailingMA replaces a fixed-pip stop loss with a moving average that follows the price. OnInit() instantiates the trailing object with Inp_Trailing_MA_Period=12, Inp_Trailing_MA_Shift=0, Inp_Trailing_MA_Method=MODE_SMA, and g_Inp_Trailing_MA_Applied=PRICE_CLOSE. As price moves in the profitable direction, the MA value advances with it, and CExpert calls the trailing object's CheckTrailingStop() hook on each tick, which drags the stop loss along the MA curve. When price retraces toward the MA, the position is stopped out at the MA value. This produces a stop that breathes with the trend rather than locking in a static distance — the trade is allowed to run as long as price stays well above (long) or below (short) the trailing MA, and it exits when the trend itself bends.

The third standard-library class is CMoneyNone, instantiated in OnInit() with no parameters. CMoneyNone implements the IMoney interface with a single rule: always use the broker's minimum allowable lot. EX18086 therefore ignores risk percent, account equity, and lot size — position sizing is fixed at the smallest trade the broker will accept. This is the most fragile aspect of the EA. On a cent account, the minimum lot of 0.10 with XAUUSD can be many times larger than a trader expects; on a standard account the minimum 0.01 is fine. The class is consistent with the rest of the source: every other layer is also a default from the standard library.

Three helper functions wrap the CTrade API to handle the broker's transient rejections. TryClose_EX18086(ulong ticket) calls PositionClose and retries up to three times on TRADE_RETCODE_REQUOTE, TRADE_RETCODE_TIMEOUT, TRADE_RETCODE_PRICE_OFF, or TRADE_RETCODE_PRICE_CHANGED, sleeping 200 ms between attempts. TryClosePartial_EX18086(ticket, volume) does the same thing for PositionClosePartial. TryModify_EX18086(ticket, sl, tp) wraps PositionModify with the same retry pattern but uses a 100 ms sleep. These wrappers are the only custom code in the EA; they exist to make sure the trailing-stop modifications and the eventual close both land at the broker even when the server is busy.

The risk stack is therefore the standard MQL5 defaults. There is no break-even function, no profit-lock ratchet, no session filter, no spread cap, no daily-loss limit, no news filter, no regime classifier, no higher-timeframe confirmation, and no opposite-signal close. Expert_EveryTick is set to false, which means the expert is bar-driven rather than tick-driven: signals and entries are evaluated on the open of each new bar, not on every price change. CExpert handles tick-level stop-loss management internally, but entries only fire on bar opens. This avoids the duplicate-order problem that plagues some tick-driven EAs but it also means a fast candle can move far before the EA reacts.

The OnTrade() and OnTimer() handlers are one-liners that simply forward to ExtExpert.OnTrade() and ExtExpert.OnTimer(). OnDeinit() calls ExtExpert.Deinit() to clean up the CExpert object. There is no custom OnTester(), so the strategy tester will use MetaTrader's default fitness metric (profit). All the indicator buffers are managed inside CSignalMA and CTrailingMA — the EA does not maintain its own handles for iMA, iATR, iRSI, or any other indicator.

What this EA is, in plain words, is a clean baseline. It is the MQL5 standard-library ExpertMA sample with magic number 22218086, signal MA period 12 shifted by 6, and trailing MA period 12 not shifted. The leverage is the trade-off between entering late and entering false. Traders who want to study how a CSignalMA + CTrailingMA combination behaves on XAUUSD M5 with a 1-pip-spread broker will find this a useful starting point. Traders who want pre-built risk management, session filters, regime classification, or pyramiding should look at the more elaborate EAs in the catalogue — EX18086 is the canvas, not the finished painting.

The expected backtest behavior is straightforward: a trending XAUUSD M5 day with sustained one-directional movement will produce a clean series of MA-following entries with the trailing stop advancing smoothly and exiting near the MA at trend exhaustion. A sideways or choppy day will produce many small losses as the trailing MA whipsaws against price. The 6-bar shift on the signal MA acts as a slow filter that suppresses most of the chop — but not all of it. As always with a wrapper EA, the broker's spread, the symbol's commission, and the lot size the broker assigns as minimum will dominate the equity curve. Test on the actual symbol the EA will trade, with the actual broker, before committing capital.