VERY nice UI!!

I will update re: performance. 

Many thanks! Any questions at all please feel free to reach out.

Paul.

Hi Patrick — on the Gold side, the Weekly Regime Filter isn't actually the issue here. Gold's weekly EMA slope sits around +4.0% which clears the threshold by a huge margin — it's never going to block Gold entries.

What happened is that Gold dropped over $300 in a single session last week — that's a ~7% crash driven by the US-Iran war escalation, strikes on Qatar's gas hub, and energy prices spiking. When volatility gets that extreme, the EA's 4-component scoring engine (ADX, EMA, ATR, RSI) naturally becomes more selective. All four components have to agree before any trade opens — and in chaotic war-driven price action, that agreement is harder to reach because breakouts are failing, momentum is erratic, and moves are news-driven rather than technical.

That's the scoring engine doing its job. The EA has configurable thresholds for all of these filters but they're all optimised from extensive backtesting and I wouldn't want to adjust them for what are genuinely abnormal market conditions. Better to let the filters protect you and accept fewer trades than force entries into a market that's being driven by geopolitics rather than technicals.

Gold is volatile at the best of times — in a week like this, reduced trade frequency is completely expected. Things should normalise as the market digests the news cycle. Let me know how today goes!

Hi Fouzy, appreciate you flagging this.

So what's happening is totally normal — the EA sizes positions based on your account balance, the stop loss distance, and Gold's contract value. Gold's pip value is roughly $10 per lot compared to $1 on forex, so even at the default 1.5% risk (which is already half what the EURUSD version uses), the lots come out much bigger than you'd expect.

Quick example: say you've got a $5k account, 1.5% risk, 5-pip stop — that works out to $75 risk / (5 x $10) = 1.5 lots. So your 1.67 is bang on what the formula should produce.

Few things you can do to bring it down:

1. Drop RiskPerTrade to 0.5-1.0% in the inputs tab — biggest difference you'll notice straight away
2. Make sure CompoundAggressive is off if you've got it on — that reinvests profits into sizing so lots creep up after a good run
3. Set MaxLotSize to something like 0.5 or 1.0 as a hard ceiling — no trade will exceed that regardless of what the risk formula calculates
4. Worth checking your broker's contract spec too — some use 100oz per lot, others 10oz, which changes everything

Nothing wrong with the EA — it's doing exactly what it should. Gold just needs a lighter touch on the risk % because of how the contract is valued. I run my own signal at the 1.5% default but on a smaller account so the lots stay reasonable.

The live-tuned set file and full parameter breakdown are in my blog: https://www.mql5.com/en/users/mortah/blog

Were any of you running the live-tuned trailing stop settings from the blog yesterday? Gold went on a tear — 11 trades, 10 wins, +10% on the account in one session. The adjusted TrailingStart/TrailingStep settings from the set file handled the volatility perfectly.

If you missed it, the live-tuned set file is free in the blog post:
https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/768314

All trades verified on the public signal:
https://www.mql5.com/en/signals/2365039

v1.33 drops this weekend — redesigned dashboard with weekly trend display, session hours in the footer, and new day block filters (Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday). Let me know how your setups are going.

Apologies for the dead links earlier — here are the corrected ones:

Blog post (live-tuned set file): https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/768314

Live signal (all trades verified): https://www.mql5.com/en/signals/2365039

— mortahtech

Any possible settings for $125-$200 equity perhaps, just for a start?

Also, will you be willing to help on settings for a prop account, with fairly strict rules?

Regarding the question from NexLuxe, definitely an interesting one. I have set up a blog post on the subject — "The Impossible Gold — Prop Firm Settings Guide" — not specific to any prop firm but covers settings applicable to all prop firms with a cheat sheet for FTMO, The5ers, E8, and others. I also ran a backtest on Q1 2026 for prop firm compliance and posted the results, which can be verified with the attached .set file in the blog.

https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/768516

If anyone has specific rules that I have not covered please feel free to PM me.

Hey, thanks for the detailed breakdown — that's really helpful for diagnosing.

A few things to check:

1. Market conditions matter a lot. The last 2-3 weeks have been tough for Gold breakout strategies in general — the market has been range-bound and choppy, which generates false breakouts. This isn't unique to your setup, it's affected all live accounts running the EA right now. Strategy tester shows long-term edge but it doesn't prepare you for the bad stretches.

2. Which .set file are you using? The default FTMO .set has aggressive settings designed for passing a challenge quickly (1.25% risk). On a $10,000 demo, -$238 is only -2.4% which is actually within normal drawdown range for that file. The EA can draw down 5-8% before recovering — 1.5 weeks isn't enough data to judge.

3. On the €1,000 account — what's your RiskPerTrade? At €1,000 with the default 0.75% risk, your lot sizes will be very small and each loss stings proportionally more. A -20% drawdown in 2 weeks suggests either the risk is too high for the account size, or the lot sizing is hitting minimum lot floors (0.01) which can distort the intended risk profile.

4. Your setup is solid. IC Markets raw spread + NY ForexVPS at 2-3ms is one of the best combinations you can have. That's not the issue.

My recommendations:

• Don't judge the EA on 2 weeks of data — you need at minimum 50-100 trades to see the edge. Check your strategy tester over the same 2-week period and you'll likely see the same drawdown there too.
• On the €1,000 account, use RiskPerTrade of 1% maximum and make sure MinScoreToTrade is at least 75 to filter out weaker setups.
• Let the $10,000 FTMO demo run for at least 4-6 weeks before drawing conclusions. -2.4% is noise, not a problem.
• If you want to compare apples to apples, run the strategy tester over the exact same dates (April 1-15 2026) and see if the results match. If they do, it's just a bad run. If they don't, there may be a spread/execution difference to investigate.

Gold has cycles — the EA will go through losing weeks. The edge shows over months, not days. Stick with it a bit longer and let me know how it looks after 50+ trades 🙏

can anyone provide me .set file for 5 min