Quotient Drift EA Manual: a Prop Firm Gold EA for FundedNext, FTMO, Blueberry, The5ers, Funded Trading Plus and Eightcap
An expert advisor cannot make a prop firm challenge pass faster than the market allows. What it can do is refuse to break the rules while it waits, count the things the firm counts, and stop before a line instead of after it. That is the whole job, and most accounts are lost because something in that list was missing rather than because the entries were bad.
This is the settings manual for Quotient Drift, a gold EA that runs a portfolio of tactics on one chart with a prop firm rule guard built in. It covers what each firm profile applies, how the two tiers differ, every input and when to change it, and what the testing did and did not show. The uncomfortable parts are in here too, including the windows where this engine does not reach a target at all.
- MetaTrader 5: Quotient Drift MT5
- MetaTrader 4: Quotient Drift MT4
What a prop firm EA can and cannot do
A challenge has two clocks. One is the profit target. The other is the set of limits that end the account: a daily loss cap, a total loss cap, and on many programmes a consistency rule and a minimum number of trading days. Only the second clock is under a robot's control. An EA can be precise about the limits in a way a human cannot, because it never gets bored, never rounds a number in its favour, and never decides that today is different.
The 30-day question
The number this corner of the market promises on gold is thirty days. Here is what the testing actually shows.
The faster tier reached a first-phase target in roughly thirty days in the 2026 trending window. That was the one window where it did. In the low-volatility years the second tactic barely trades at all, because it only wakes when the hourly range is wide enough to carry it, and those years rarely gave it one. In the second half of 2025 every step above the shipped one broke a floor.
So a claim of thirty days across every market is not something this data supports, and it is not made anywhere in this manual or on either product page. What the product does claim is narrower and checkable: the guard stops before the line, and the tier you choose determines whether you are trading often or waiting.
Why the fast tactic goes quiet
The second tactic carries a volatility gate measured in points of hourly range. Below that threshold it does not trade. That produces long stretches with no entries from it, which feels like a broken robot and is the opposite: those are exactly the conditions in which a fast gold tactic bleeds. The gate is there to make the waiting automatic.
How the engine trades gold
Tactic 1, the trend pullback
The core tactic buys an RSI dip on the fifteen minute chart in the direction of the four hour trend, and sells the mirror image, but only while the ADX regime gate on the trend timeframe says the market is moving. It is a pullback engine with a regime gate on top, which is why it sits out quiet years rather than bleeding through them. The same slot carries three other engines, all included and all switched off in the shipped presets: a range breakout, a band reversion that fades a Bollinger extreme in a quiet regime, and an adaptive mode that picks between pullback and reversion by ADX. The MetaTrader 4 build runs the band reversion in this slot, which is one of the reasons its figures are not comparable with these.
Tactic 2, the volatility-gated pullback
An RSI pullback on a fast chart, with a trend filter and the volatility gate described above. This is what makes the Fast tier fast, and what makes it idle when conditions do not suit.
The three other slots
An opening-range breakout, a trend continuation and a range breakout are included and ship switched off. They were screened and did not earn a place in the shipped tiers. They remain available for anyone who wants to test them.
The arbiter
One position per tactic. A cap on how many run at once. A cap on the sum of open risk. No adding to a position that is already losing. Where a firm prohibits holding both directions, the profile forces that off.
Exits
Stop and target sized from ATR rather than a pip constant, so the same settings behave sensibly on any instrument. Then break-even, a partial close, an ATR trailing stop, and an optional time exit.
The two tiers and the five windows
Five market windows are used throughout this manual: 2023, 2024, the first half of 2025, the second half of 2025, and 2026 to date.
Table A: what each tier is
| Tier | Tactics | Max concurrent | Shipped risk MT5 | Shipped risk MT4 | Where it earns its name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | the first tactic only (trend pullback on MetaTrader 5, band reversion on MetaTrader 4) | 1 | 0.75 to 1.00 percent | 0.50 percent | Slower, and the one that survives the quiet years |
| Fast | the first tactic plus the gated fast pullback | 2 | 0.75 percent | 0.50 percent | Quicker in a trending market, idle in a flat one |
| Funded | the first tactic, lower risk | 1 to 2 | 0.35 to 0.50 percent | 0.50 percent | For an account already passed |
Introducing Quotient Drift on the MQL5 Market
The EA is listed for both platforms. Installation is automatic after purchase: it appears under Navigator, Expert Advisors, Market, and you drag it onto a chart. There is no file copying, and the free demo runs in the Strategy Tester before you spend anything.
- MetaTrader 5: Quotient Drift MT5
- MetaTrader 4: Quotient Drift MT4
The prop firm guard, rule by rule
The daily loss floor
The guard measures the day on the firm's own clock and holds a buffer back from the limit. If your firm allows 5 percent and the buffer is 0.8, the EA stops the day at 4.2 percent. The difference is what pays for the spread on the closing trade. A guard that stops exactly at the line breaches the line whenever the last fill is poor.
Firms measure the day differently. Some use a percentage of your starting account size. Others use whatever the account was worth at the reset moment, and one uses the higher of balance and equity at that moment, which is stricter when you carry a floating loss into the new day. The profile sets the right basis for you.
The total loss floor, static or trailing
A static floor sits at a fixed distance below your starting size and never moves. A trailing floor follows your account up, which means profit you have made can be taken back into the breach zone. Some firms trail from the end-of-day balance high, others from the intraday equity high, and several stop trailing once profit reaches a set level, which locks the floor at your starting size. All three behaviours are supported because all three exist.
The reset clocks
This is the most common configuration mistake in prop-firm automation. The daily window does not start at midnight on your broker's clock unless your firm says so.
The target latch, minimum days and profitable days
When the target is reached the EA closes and pauses rather than continuing to trade an account that has already passed. It closes slightly above the official target so the closing spread does not drop you back under it.
Two counting rules sit in front of that. Minimum trading days is what it sounds like. Profitable days is stricter: several programmes only count a day where the closed result was up by a set amount. The EA counts days the same way the firm does.
Consistency, handled as a gate and not a block
Several firms cap how much of your total profit may come from your single best day. Quotient Drift treats this as a gate on declaring the phase finished, not as a block on entries. Blocking entries would deadlock the account after the first profitable day, because the ratio can only improve by trading on more days.
The size ratchet
At least one firm defines martingale as any position larger than the last one after a loss. When that profile is selected, a losing close caps the next position at the losing trade's size, and a winning close clears the cap.
Minimum holding time, rollover and settlement
Several firms require positions to be held for a minimum time. When a profile that requires it is selected, the EA forces that setting rather than leaving it to you. Orderly closes respect it; protective closes do not, because a breached floor outranks a holding-time rule.
Gold also has a rollover window worth avoiding, and one firm blocks trading in a settlement window. Both are inputs, and both are set by the profile where the firm requires them.
Firm profiles: the numbers each profile applies
Selecting a profile fills the guard numbers only. It does not check your account, restrict your broker or block any symbol. The values were recorded on 6 September 2026. Firms change their rules, so check them against your own firm dashboard. The EA prints the numbers in force when it starts and shows them on the dashboard for exactly that reason.
Table C: guard values by profile
| Profile | Target | Daily loss | Total loss | Reset clock | Min days | Measured with this engine |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FTMO 2-Step | 10 then 5 | 5% | 10% static | Central Europe | 4 | Yes, on FTMO's own demo |
| FTMO 1-Step | 10 | 3% | 10% trailing | Central Europe | 0 | Yes, on FTMO's own demo |
| FTMO Funded | none | 5% | 10% static | Central Europe | 0 | Yes, on FTMO's own demo |
| FundedNext Stellar 2-Step | 8 then 5 | 5% | 10% static | Server midnight | 5 | Yes, on FundedNext's own server, 2024 to 2026 |
| FundedNext Stellar 1-Step | 10 | 3% | 6% static | Server midnight | 2 | Yes, on FundedNext's own server, 2024 to 2026 |
| FundedNext Stellar Lite | 8 then 4 | 4% | 8% static | Server midnight | 5 | Yes, on FundedNext's own server, 2024 to 2026 |
| FundedNext Stellar Instant | none | 3% | 6% trailing | Server midnight | 0 | Yes, on FundedNext's own server, 2024 to 2026 |
| Blueberry 1-Step | 10 | 4% | 6% static | 21:00 GMT | 3 | Yes, on Blueberry's own demo, 2023 to 2026 |
| Blueberry 2-Step | 10 then 5 | 5% | 10% static | 21:00 GMT | 3 | Yes, on Blueberry's own demo, 2023 to 2026 |
| Blueberry Prime | 8 then 6 | 4% | 10% static | 21:00 GMT | 5 | Yes, on Blueberry's own demo, 2023 to 2026 |
| Blueberry Instant Elite | none | 4% | 10% trailing, locks at +10 | 21:00 GMT | 0 | Yes, on Blueberry's own demo, 2023 to 2026 |
| The5ers High Stakes | 10 then 5 | 5% | 10% static | 21:00 GMT | 3 profitable | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| The5ers Hyper Growth | 10 | 3% | 6% static | 21:00 GMT | 0 | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| The5ers Pro Growth | 10 | 3% | 6% static | 21:00 GMT | 3 profitable | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| The5ers Instant Funding | none | none | 6% static | 21:00 GMT | 0 | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| Eightcap One Phase | 10 | 4% | 8% static | 21:00 GMT | 5 | Yes, on Eightcap's own demo |
| Eightcap Two Phase | 9 then 5 | 5% | 10% static | 21:00 GMT | 3 | Yes, on Eightcap's own demo |
| Funded Trading Plus Express | 10 | 3% | 6% trailing, locks at +6 | 21:00 GMT | 0 | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| Funded Trading Plus Classic | 7 then 7 | 3% | 8% static | 21:00 GMT | 0 | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| Funded Trading Plus Instant | none | 3% | 6% trailing, locks at +6 | 21:00 GMT | 0 | Yes, but on a stand-in feed |
| Fintokei ProTrader | 8 then 6 | 5% | 10% static | Eastern Europe | 3 profitable | No. Rule numbers only |
| Fintokei SwiftTrader | 6 | 2% | 3% static | Eastern Europe | 3 | No. Rule numbers only |
| Fintokei StartTrader | 2, 3, 6 | 3% | 6% static | Eastern Europe | 3 | No. Rule numbers only |
| Manual | your value | your value | your value | your choice | your value | For any firm not listed |
The Measured column is the important one. It is there because the dropdown offers more programmes than have been tested with this engine, and a reader picking a profile deserves to know which kind they are choosing.
Table D: the reset clocks in GMT
| Clock | Firms | GMT in summer | GMT in winter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midnight central Europe | FTMO | 22:00 | 23:00 |
| Fixed GMT hour | Blueberry, The5ers, Eightcap, Funded Trading Plus | as set, 21:00 by default | as set |
| Midnight eastern Europe | Fintokei | 21:00 | 22:00 |
| Broker server midnight | FundedNext | follows your server | follows your server |
| 17:00 US Eastern | available for any firm that uses it | 21:00 | 22:00 |
Which feed produced which number
This is the section most manuals leave out.
Table E: feed provenance
| Firm | Server used | Windows on that server | What is missing from the numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTMO | FTMO's own demo | all five | nothing |
| Eightcap | Eightcap's own demo | all five | nothing |
| FundedNext | FundedNext's own server | 2024, both halves of 2025, and 2026 | its gold history does not reach 2023, so that window carries no figure rather than a substituted one |
| Blueberry Funded | Blueberry's own demo | all five | nothing |
| The5ers | a stand-in broker demo | all five | the firm publishes no demo server, and its per-lot commission is not inside these figures |
| Funded Trading Plus | a stand-in broker demo | all five | as above |
| Fintokei | none | none | never run with this engine |
What is deliberately not shipped
Programmes that were tested and are not recommended are named here rather than quietly omitted.
- Any tier at a risk step above the shipped one for the second half of 2025: every one broke a floor on that data.
- The faster tier on the tightest one-step programmes: it did not clear every one of the tested windows.
- Instant-funded programmes above the lowest step: the trailing floor leaves no room.
Download the presets
Both archives are attached to this post. The MQL5 Market does not allow preset files on a product page, which is the reason this manual is a blog post: a blog post takes attachments.
Each archive holds one folder per firm, and within it one file per programme, tier and account size. Every file is complete: it states every input of its platform, so loading one puts the EA in a known state rather than leaving settings at whatever you had loaded before.
The two archives are not interchangeable. MetaTrader 5 has 220 inputs and MetaTrader 4 has 100, and many names overlap. If you load a MetaTrader 4 file into MetaTrader 5 the terminal will accept the names it recognises and leave the rest at whatever was there before, without warning you. Every file carries a comment on its first line saying which platform it is for. Use the archive that matches yours.
A preset sets the firm profile, the phase, the tier, the risk step and the account size. It cannot know two things, so check them after loading: your real account size, and whether your broker adds a suffix to gold.
Setting it up in five steps
- Install from the Market. In the terminal, open Navigator, expand Expert Advisors, then Market, and drag Quotient Drift onto a chart.
- Attach it to a gold chart. One chart, one instance.
- Load the preset for your firm, programme, tier and account size, or choose the profile and phase by hand and set the account size yourself.
- Check the two things a preset cannot know: your account size, and your broker's symbol suffix.
- Enable algo trading and read the dashboard. The status line says what the EA is doing and, when it is not trading, why.
A VPS is worth having on both platforms, and it matters more on MetaTrader 4, where the guard does not keep its state across a restart.
The dashboard sits in the corner of the chart. Its status line says what the EA is doing and, when it is not trading, which gate is holding it: outside the session, spread too wide, the daily floor reached, the target latched, or the minimum holding time not yet served.
Input reference, MetaTrader 5
Firm profile
| Input | Default | What it does | When to change it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prop program | Manual | Fills the guard numbers for a firm programme | Set it to your programme |
| Phase | Phase 1 | Picks the target from the programme ladder | Phase 2 after passing phase 1; Funded removes the target |
| Point distance floors | Auto | How the point-based floors behave off gold | Leave on Auto |
Risk and sizing
| Input | Default | What it does | When to change it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size from risk percent | on | Sizes each trade from the stop distance | Leave on |
| Risk per trade | 1.0 | Percent of equity risked | Per the tier you are running |
| Fixed lots | 0.10 | Used only when risk percent is off | Rarely |
| Hard lot ceiling | 30.0 | Absolute cap on size | If your firm caps lots |
| Max entries per day | 0 | Cap across all tactics, 0 is unlimited | On firms that count trades |
Tactic 1
| Input | Default | What it does | When to change it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signal engine | Trend pullback | Which entry logic tactic one runs | Leave unless testing |
| Signal timeframe | M15 | The entry clock | Rarely |
| Trend timeframe | H4 | The trend context | Rarely |
| Band period | 20 | Reversion band length | Rarely |
| Band deviation | 2.0 | How stretched is stretched | Rarely |
| Maximum ADX to fade | 20.0 | Only fade below this | Rarely |
| ADX regime gate | on | Blocks entries in the wrong regime | Leave on |
| Minimum ADX | 18.0 | The gate threshold | Rarely |
Stops, targets and management
| Input | Default | What it does | When to change it |
|---|---|---|---|
| ATR period | 14 | Volatility measure | Rarely |
| ATR timeframe | H1 | Which clock sizes the stop | Rarely |
| Stop, ATR multiple | 1.6 | Stop distance | Rarely |
| Target, ATR multiple | 3.0 | Target distance | Rarely |
| Minimum stop, points | 800 | Floor under the stop, in points | Gold-scaled; see the note below |
| Maximum stop, points | 8000 | Safety ceiling | Rarely |
| Break even at | 1.0 | Where the stop moves to entry, in R | Rarely |
| Partial close at | 1.0, 50 percent | Banks part of the trade | Rarely |
| Trailing from | 1.2 | Where trailing starts, in R | Rarely |
| Trailing distance | 2.0 | How far behind price, in ATR | Rarely |
The point floors are chosen for two-digit gold, where 800 points is eight dollars and about one hourly range. On a five-digit currency pair the same integer would be an eighty pip stop, so on any non-gold symbol the EA reads those floors against that symbol's own volatility instead. On gold nothing changes at all.
Challenge guard
Under a firm profile these are filled for you and the manual values are ignored.
| Input | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Enable the guard | on | Turns the whole guard on or off |
| Compliant mode | on | Hard stop on every ticket, one position per tactic, no series |
| Account size | 0 | The size the rules are measured against; 0 captures it at attach |
| Profit target | 8.0 | Percent target for the phase |
| Daily loss and buffer | 5.0 and 0.8 | The daily limit and how far inside it to stop |
| Total loss and buffer | 10.0 and 0.8 | The total limit and how far inside it to stop |
| Trailing total loss | off | Whether the floor follows the account up |
| Reset clock and hour | Central Europe, 22 | When the trading day starts |
| Minimum trading days | 5 | Days required before the phase can complete |
| Count only profitable days | off | Requires each day to close up |
| Consistency gate and cap | off, 50 | Caps the share of profit from the best day |
| Minimum holding seconds | 0 | Youngest a position may be when the EA closes it |
| No size increase after a loss | off | The size ratchet |
Input reference, MetaTrader 4
The two platforms do not share an input list. MetaTrader 5 declares 241 inputs across five tactics and MetaTrader 4 declares 107 across two; of those, 220 and 100 respectively are settable values rather than section headings, which is what a preset file states. Timeframes are whole minutes on MetaTrader 4 rather than named periods. This section exists because a shared table would be wrong in both directions.
| Input | Default | What it does | When to change it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prop program | Manual | Fills the guard numbers | Set it to your programme |
| Phase | Phase 1 | Picks the target | As on MetaTrader 5 |
| Risk per trade | 0.50 | Percent of equity risked | This is one step below the MetaTrader 5 figure, deliberately |
| Tactic 1 enable | on | The band reversion | Leave on |
| Tactic 1 signal timeframe | 15 | Minutes, not a named period | Rarely |
| Tactic 2 enable | off | The RSI pullback | On for the Fast tier |
| Tactic 2 signal timeframe | 1 | Minutes | Rarely |
| Max concurrent | 1 | How many tactics may hold at once | 2 for the Fast tier |
| Slippage | as shipped | Maximum deviation | If your broker requires it |
The guard inputs carry the same names and meanings as on MetaTrader 5.
What the backtests show, and what they do not
Every figure in this manual is a Strategy Tester simulation on historical data. None of it is live trading, and none of it is a prediction.
The per-firm tester reports are the product gallery on each listing, where every card carries the window that produced it and the feed it came from.
The pattern across the windows is the point, and it is not a flattering one. In the trending windows the Standard tier reaches a first-phase target; in the flat second half of 2025 it does not, on any firm, and finishes the half anywhere between a five and a half percent loss and a six and a half percent gain. The engine's worst drawdown stayed inside every programme's floor in both kinds of market, and in one case only just: the FundedNext one-step run in the flat half came within a point of its six percent line, which is why that cell is greyed on the gallery card. That
- not a fast pass - is what the figures support.
What could not be tested
MetaTrader 4 results come from Blueberry's own MetaTrader 4 demo, and cover gold alone on a feed whose history begins in May 2025, so only two of the five windows exist on that platform. Blueberry is the only firm measured on MetaTrader 4 with this build; every other profile there carries rule numbers with no MetaTrader 4 evidence behind them. The5ers and Funded Trading Plus have no demo server, so their figures are stand-in throughout and their per-lot commission is not inside them. Fintokei has never been run with this engine.
Troubleshooting, permission first
Before touching a setting, check whether the account will let a robot trade at all. Most "the EA is not working" reports are permission problems.
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Every order rejected | The firm has not enabled expert advisors on this account | FundedNext charges a separate fee and does not allow robots on trial accounts |
| Nothing happens at all | Algo trading is off in the terminal | Turn on the algo trading button |
| No trades for days | The regime gate or the volatility gate is closed | Normal in a flat market, and normal for tactic two in a quiet year |
| Status says the daily guard halted | The day hit its floor | Trading resumes at the next reset |
| Status says the target was reached | The phase is done | Move to the next phase and re-attach |
| Guard halts while the firm dashboard shows less loss | The buffer, by design | Reduce it only if you understand the risk |
| Lots smaller than expected | The size ratchet, or a small account | Check whether the last close was a loss |
| Symbol not found | Your broker uses a suffix | Enter the exact symbol name |
| The day counter reset on MetaTrader 4 | The terminal restarted | The MetaTrader 4 build does not persist guard state; use a VPS |
Questions people actually ask
Can an EA get through a prop firm challenge? It can trade one within the rules. Whether it reaches the target depends on the market. In testing the faster tier reached a first-phase target in about thirty days in the 2026 trend, and that was the one window where it did.
Why does it take no trades for days? Usually the volatility gate on the second tactic, or the regime gate on the first. The dashboard says which.
Which pairs? Gold only. Nothing else was tested with this engine.
Does the MetaTrader 4 version do the same thing? No. It runs two of the five tactics, has no news filter and does not keep guard state across a restart. Its figures are not comparable with the MetaTrader 5 ones.
Is Fintokei supported? The rule numbers are in the dropdown. The engine has never been run on a Fintokei feed.
Do I still need my firm's own dashboard? Yes. The EA enforces what you tell it. Your firm is the authority on its own rules.
What happens after the target is reached? The EA closes slightly above the target and pauses.
Closing
The useful parts of a prop firm EA are unglamorous: the right reset hour, a buffer before the line, counting days the way the firm counts them, and refusing to trade a market that does not suit the tactic. Those are what this manual is mostly about, because those are what decide accounts.
- MetaTrader 5: Quotient Drift MT5
- MetaTrader 4: Quotient Drift MT4
Risk disclaimer
Trading foreign exchange and metals carries a high level of risk and is not suitable for every investor. The high degree of leverage available can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to trade you should carefully consider your objectives, experience and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment, and you should not invest money you cannot afford to lose.
All performance figures in this article are Strategy Tester simulations on historical data. They are not live trading results and they are not a prediction of future results. Past performance does not guarantee future results. No expert advisor can promise that a prop firm challenge will be passed.
