Pipsgrowth EX18108 TrendFollow

Pipsgrowth EX18108 is a single-position, bar-driven indicator monitor that scans four cross-checking signals before it ever considers firing an order. The strategy skeleton rests on a 21-period EMA and a 55-period EMA, a 12/26/9 MACD, a 14-period RSI, and a 14-period ATR. On every new bar of the chart, OnTick calls IsNewBar() to confirm a fresh candle, then walks through UpdateBalanceTracking, CheckRiskLimits, GetIndicatorValues, CheckTimeFilters, CheckVolatilityFilters, and finally CheckEntrySignals. Anything that returns false short-circuits the rest of the chain, so the EA never enters when its safety conditions are not met.

The trade trigger itself is constructed to catch pullbacks inside an established trend, not breakouts. CheckLongEntry requires the close to be above both EMA(21) and EMA(55), which confirms an uptrend regime. It then walks the last two completed bars looking for a MACD main-line cross below the signal line on the more recent of those bars. That bearish cross represents the momentary loss of upside momentum that the EA treats as the pullback. The RSI filter then narrows the band: long entries are only taken when the current RSI sits inside 40-60, which is the neutral zone where momentum is cooling but not yet oversold. Finally, the distance from price to EMA(21) is checked against EMA_Pullback_Pips (default 15 pips) so the entry sits close enough to the moving average to actually be a pullback rather than a fresh leg. CheckShortEntry mirrors all of this with the same distance band and the inverted RSI band (40-60 maps to 40-60 on the short side via 100 - RSI_High and 100 - RSI_Low, which the source computes as 40 to 60 — a symmetry worth noting because it does not skew toward long or short).

Risk and trade management are explicit and quantified. The stop loss is sized as ATR(14) * 2.0 pips, capped by MaxStopLossPips at 150 pips. The take profit is ATR(14) * 3.0 pips, with no cap. That gives a 1.5 reward-to-risk ratio at the default configuration, but the actual ratio at any entry depends on the live ATR — a high-volatility bar can produce a 2.0 ATR stop capped at 150 pips with a 3.0 ATR take profit further away in absolute pips. CalculateLotSize then sizes the position so that the trade risks exactly RiskPercent percent of the account balance if the stop is hit. The formula is balance * RiskPercent/100 / (ticks_in_SL * tick_value), with the result floored to the symbol's lot step and clamped between the symbol's min and max volume. This is a textbook pip-value position sizer, not a fixed-lot scheme, so a $100 account and a $10,000 account at 1% risk will both open positions sized to their balance — though the smaller account will often hit the broker's minimum lot.

The EA enforces a strict one-position cap via MaxPositions = 1. It does not pyramid, does not scale in, and does not add to winners. CheckEntrySignals counts positions whose symbol and magic number match before each signal check and returns immediately if the cap is hit. The lot sizing, take profit, and stop loss are all baked into the order at entry; there is no trailing stop, no break-even ratchet, and no partial close in the active path. The retry helpers TryClose_EX18108, TryClosePartial_EX18108, and TryModify_EX18108 exist in the file but are not called from OnTick — they are dormant infrastructure. The only position state change is the order itself, plus server-side SL and TP.

Two hard-coded safety gates sit upstream of the signal check. CheckTimeFilters honors the three session flags. With the defaults (Asian ON 00:00-09:00, London ON 07:00-16:00, New York OFF), the EA only opens orders when the broker's server time falls inside the Asian or London window — a configuration that covers the London-Asia overlap from 07:00 to 09:00. CheckVolatilityFilters rejects any bar where the ATR is below MinATR (0.5) or above MaxATR (2.0), and rejects any tick where the spread exceeds MaxSpreadPips (2.5 pips after the 3-or-5-digit normalization). Both gates log to the journal, which makes it easy to audit a backtest's no-trade rate by searching for [Filters].

The account-level kill switch lives in CheckRiskLimits. It tracks two reference balances: daily_starting_balance, reset on the first tick of each new broker day, and peak_balance, which is the all-time high water mark since the EA was attached. If the day's loss as a percent of the starting balance reaches DailyLossLimit (3%), or if the current drawdown from peak reaches MaxDrawdownPercent (15%), CheckRiskLimits returns false and the rest of the bar is skipped. There is no closing of existing positions — the EA only refuses to open new ones. The peak-balance approach means a long quiet period followed by a drawdown will be measured against the highest balance ever seen, not the most recent.

The header block in the .mq5 claims a 12-layer architecture, but a strict count of the actual code yields closer to eight: signal generation (the EMA/MACD/RSI triple), entry trigger, confirmation (the pullback distance), no-trade (session + volatility), capital cap (MaxPositions), risk (lot sizing and SL), exit (TP and SL are server-attached), and a daily drawdown brake. Missing from the implementation are any explicit regime classifier, scaling logic (single position only), OnTester block, news filter, equity curve filter, or info panel. The diagnostic PrintIndicatorSnapshot call after every filter pass writes EMA, MACD, RSI, and ATR values to the journal for post-mortem analysis, which is the only built-in observability beyond the filter and trade logs.

In backtest this configuration behaves like a London-session pullback engine on XAUUSD M5. The 1% risk per trade, 3% daily loss cap, 15% drawdown cap, 1.5 reward-to-risk target, and single-position cap are the load-bearing parameters. Anyone running this should size their account so the symbol's minimum lot does not force oversized risk on the small end, and should expect most blocked bars to come from the session filter outside London hours and the spread filter during thin Asian sessions on gold.