Six gold pairs are one bet: count the risk, not the charts

An EA that trades six gold pairs looks diversified in the symbol list. It is not. XAUEUR, XAUGBP, XAUAUD, XAUJPY and XAUCHF are gold priced in other currencies, and when gold moves they mostly move with it. Six positions on them are one view on gold, held six times.

That matters for one number more than any other: how much of your balance is at risk when everything the EA can hold is open at once.

The check: add up the risk to the stops

Before you buy any EA that trades more than one symbol, ask two questions. When every position it can open is open, how much of the balance sits between the entries and the stops? And is there anything that stops it from getting there?

A worked example: our own gold robot

We build Gold Tempo, so here are its numbers, read out of the shipped code of version 1.2 rather than copied from a description. On the default package the lead, XAUUSD, risks 1.50% of the balance per trade. Each of the five crosses trades at half that, 0.75%. All six open at full size would come to 5.25%.

Above that sits one cap on the whole book: three times the lead's risk, 4.50% of the balance, counted to each position's stop. With the lead and four crosses open the book is full, and the fifth cross has to wait.

Four of the five crosses may only open while XAUUSD already holds a position in the same direction. They add to the lead's bet, they never hedge it. That is exactly why the cap is there.

What a cap does not fix

On a small account the broker's minimum lot decides the size, not your risk setting. Gold Tempo's listing says so: below roughly 3000, one forced trade can carry up to 4.0% of the balance on the lead and 2.0% on a cross. The cap still counts those trades, so on a small account it simply fills sooner.

Your two-minute check

1. Group the symbols that move together and count each group as one bet.

2. Add up the risk to the stops for everything the EA can hold at once.

3. Find the cap. If there is none, that sum is your worst case on a bad day.

4. Check the minimum lot against your account size. Below it, your broker sizes the trade, not your settings.

If a seller cannot answer the second question, the number of charts on the screenshot tells you nothing.

Gold Tempo on the MQL5 Market: https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/191673