Pitbull Gold: the complete user manual (setup, profiles, daily limit, backtesting, VPS and panel)
This is the guide to Pitbull Gold, the gold (XAUUSD) Expert Advisor from Lucky Dogs Trading Systems for MetaTrader 5. Getting Pitbull running takes about 10 minutes; the rest of the time is its job.
In this manual: 1. Before you install · 2. Installation · 3. Which profile to choose · 4. The settings · 5. The daily loss limit · 6. The panel · 7. Running 24 hours (VPS) · 8. How to backtest · 9. Shared accounts and prop firms · 10. Technical questions · 11. Support
1. Before you install
| Platform | MetaTrader 5, hedging account |
| Symbol | Gold quoted in USD, under any name (XAUUSD, XAUUSD+, GOLD, XAUUSD.m...) |
| Account | Start at 100 USD; 1,000 USD or more recommended. The lot never goes below 0.01: on 100 USD, a trade at its stop costs about 9% of the account on any profile. Balanced works as described from about 300 USD, and every profile from about 1,000 USD |
| Leverage | 1:100 or higher, for any profile |
| Terminal | Every trade's stop and target live on the broker's server. Pitbull manages the trades while they are open, so keep the terminal on. VPS recommended (section 7) |
2. Installation
- Buy or rent Pitbull Gold on its Market page: https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/200576. In MetaTrader, open the Market tab and install it from Purchased.
- In the Navigator, Pitbull appears under Expert Advisors > Market.
- Open one gold chart, any timeframe, and drag Pitbull onto it.
- On the Inputs tab, choose the risk profile (section 3). On the Common tab, tick "Allow Algo Trading".
- Turn on the terminal's Algo Trading button and check the panel: Algo, Hedging and Gold should all be ticked.
Use one chart per account. A second chart with the same magic number won't start: Pitbull says so in the log and stays idle.
3. Which profile to choose
The profile is the main setting: it sets what a trade can cost at its stop and, through that, the lot and how fast the account can grow.
Backtest results with 10,000 USD at the start of each year, measured in the Strategy Tester with real ticks. Each cell shows the year's return / that year's maximum equity drawdown, measured on every tick:
| Profile | 2026 through September | 2025 | 2024 | One trade at its stop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | +95% / 7% | +81% / 5% | +13% / 11% | about 1% of balance |
| Moderate | +290% / 13% | +228% / 9% | +25% / 21% | about 2% |
| Balanced (default) | +653% / 19% | +478% / 14% | +34% / 30% | about 3% |
| Aggressive | +1,331% / 25% | +907% / 18% | +40% / 39% | about 4% |
| Maximum | +2,555% / 30% | +1,615% / 23% | +42% / 47% | about 5% |
On a gap the exit can go past the stop, and more than one trade can stop out on the same day: the worst day in the backtests on Balanced, the default profile, cost 25% of the balance (a US payroll day in July 2024). 2025 and 2026 were exceptional years for gold, with the lot compounding: they are not a rate to project forward. The weak years are on the product page.
How to choose, in three questions:
- How much are you willing to lose on one trade? About 1% of the balance: Conservative. About 2%: Moderate. And so on, following the last column of the table.
- What is your leverage? At 1:100 or higher, every profile trades the same.
- Is this your first time with Pitbull? Start on Conservative. After a month live, if it behaves the way you expected, move up one profile.
4. The settings, one by one
| Group | Setting (as shown in MT5) | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| RISK | Risk profile | Conservative, Moderate, Balanced, Aggressive or Maximum (section 3) | Balanced |
| RISK | Lot mode | Automatic, by the profile (grows with the account), or a fixed lot | Automatic |
| RISK | Fixed lot size | The lot of each trade, in fixed lot mode only | 0.01 |
| RISK | Automatic lot calculated on | The balance, the equity or a fixed amount (Pitbull's slice of the account) | Balance |
| RISK | Fixed amount | The amount used when the lot is calculated on a fixed amount | 1,000 |
| RISK | Max lot per trade | A safety cap: no trade goes above this lot (0 = no cap) | 0 |
| ACCOUNT PROTECTION | Daily loss limit | Off; pause new trades until the next day; or close the open trades and pause until the next day (section 5) | Off |
| ACCOUNT PROTECTION | Daily loss limit - percent of balance | The limit, in % of the balance at the start of the day | 0 |
| NEWS | Pause new trades around high-impact US news | From 30 minutes before to 30 minutes after each high-impact US release, takes the pending orders off the server and opens no new trade. Live it uses MetaTrader's calendar; in backtests, a calendar built into Pitbull (section 5) | Off |
| WEEKEND | Short Friday | From this Friday hour (GMT+2, GMT+3 in summer), opens no new trade and takes the pending orders off the server; open trades finish normally. 0 turns it off. To leave nothing exposed over the weekend, we recommend 21 | 0 (off) |
| DISPLAY | Show the panel | Shows the panel on the chart, also in the Strategy Tester's visual mode | On |
| DISPLAY | Apply the Lucky Dogs chart theme | Applies the brand colors to the chart; when you remove the EA, your colors come back | On |
| GENERAL | Magic number | The number that identifies Pitbull's orders | 63290000 |
| GENERAL | Order comment | The text shown on the orders | Pitbull |
5. The daily loss limit
The limit looks at Pitbull's own loss for the day, adding what has already closed to what is open, against the balance at the start of the day. Losses from other EAs on the same account don't count. It resets by itself when the server's day turns.
- Pause new trades for the rest of the day: when the limit is hit, Pitbull takes its pending orders off the server and opens nothing new until the next day. Open trades carry on with their own stop and target.
- Close open trades and pause for the rest of the day: a little before the limit (at 95% of it, to leave room for slippage), Pitbull closes the open trades, takes the pending orders off and stops until the next day.
Each trade's stop is a separate thing: it always exists, on the server, even with the limit off.
Short Friday. From 2021 to 2026, Pitbull never carried an open trade over a weekend. What can stay over the weekend are the pending orders, which sometimes fill at Monday's open, already at the gap price. With Short Friday at 21, from 21:00 on Friday it opens nothing and takes its pending orders off the server; on Monday they come back, and if price has already passed the level, the order is dropped. In the 2025 and 2026 backtests, the 21:00 cut cost nothing: the result came out 1% higher, with the same drawdown. Earlier cuts cost more: at 16:00, 10% of the result, because Friday mornings in New York are good for Pitbull.
News filter. When a high-impact release hits, price can jump past the stop before the order fills. The worst day in the backtests was a US payroll day, with the stop slipping more than three times its size. With the filter on, in the 2021 to 2026 backtests, the worst day drops from -8.5% to -5.0% on Conservative and from -25% to -15% on Balanced, but the 2026 return through September drops from +100% to +74% on Conservative. For prop firms, we recommend turning it on.
6. The panel
- Header: Pitbull's status: ACTIVE, NEWS PAUSE, MARKET CLOSED, DAILY LIMIT or ATTENTION.
- Account: balance, equity, free margin and leverage.
- Execution: the current spread, the average slippage of the latest orders and the ping, plus the checks for Algo trading, hedging account and gold symbol.
- Risk: profile, the next trade's lot, open trades and open profit, and the drawdown of Pitbull itself (not of the whole account), now and the maximum, with a Reset button.
- Results: today, this week, this month and all time: number of trades, profit and %. One trade is one position, commission and swap included.
A collapse button in the corner turns the panel into a strip with the equity and the day's result.
7. Running 24 hours: VPS
The stop and the target are on the server, so a terminal that shuts down never leaves a trade unprotected. But Pitbull manages each trade while it is open, and it can only do that with MetaTrader on and connected. Two ways to make sure of it:
- MetaTrader's own VPS: in the Navigator, under Accounts, right-click your account and choose "Register a Virtual Server". Pick the plan and migrate your charts and EAs. Pitbull then runs on the server.
- Your own Windows VPS, ideally close to your broker's server, with MetaTrader open all the time.
Things to watch:
- After migrating to the VPS, don't leave the same Pitbull running on your computer: that would be two copies trading the same account. Close the local chart or turn off local Algo Trading.
- On MetaTrader's VPS the panel doesn't show, because there is no screen. Follow it through the virtual hosting journal in your terminal, or through the signal.
- Changed a setting? Migrate again so the VPS gets the change.
8. How to backtest
The free demo runs in the Strategy Tester. On the product page, click Free Demo; it shows up in the tester under Expert Advisors > Market. The setup we used for our tables:
| Symbol | Your broker's gold |
| Timeframe | Any |
| Dates | One year at a time, for example 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 |
| Modelling | Every tick based on real ticks |
| Deposit and leverage | 10,000 USD, 1:500 |
| Inputs | The profile you want to check; everything else at the default |
- Why real ticks: the bar-based models make up the order of prices inside each minute, and that order decides whether the stop or the target comes first. On the first run, MetaTrader downloads the ticks, which can take a while.
- History quality: in the report, it should be close to 100%. If it is low, your broker doesn't have enough real ticks for that period.
- Watch the panel: tick Visual mode in the tester to follow the panel during the test.
- News: MetaTrader doesn't give the economic calendar to the Strategy Tester, so Pitbull carries the calendar of high-impact US releases inside it: the filter works in backtests too. Our tables are with the filter off, which is the default.
- Why your number won't be identical to ours: spread, commission, swap and ticks vary between brokers, and the tester fills at the first real tick past the price, while a live account adds latency and more slippage. Our numbers use real ticks from Vantage (XAUUSD+).
9. Shared accounts and prop firms
Pitbull shares an account well with other EAs, and it works on prop firms with a fixed lot sized to the firm's limit and the daily loss limit on. The guide with lot tables from 5,000 to 200,000 USD is here: https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/777491.
10. Technical questions
The terminal restarted with a trade open. What now?
Nothing to do: the trade stayed protected by the stop and target on the server, and when the terminal comes back Pitbull resumes managing it.
Can I change the chart timeframe?
Yes. The chart timeframe doesn't change how it trades.
I run another EA on the same account. Which magic number should it use?
Give the other EAs on the account magic numbers that already differ from Pitbull's in the first four digits.
A trade hit its stop. Does Pitbull stop trading?
No, it keeps trading. For a cap on the day, turn on the daily loss limit (section 5).
What about weekends?
From 2021 to 2026, no Pitbull trade was carried over a weekend. What can remain are the pending orders, which sometimes fill on Monday's gap. To leave nothing on the server over the weekend, set Short Friday to 21 (section 5).
Why doesn't it trade on some days?
Pitbull only enters when price confirms the move. On many days that doesn't happen, and it waits.
11. Support and community
- The Lucky Dogs channel on MQL5 (news and versions of all our EAs): https://www.mql5.com/en/channels/021c0d9e2157dd01
- One-to-one support: the MQL5 chat. Send your broker, account size, profile and a screenshot of the panel.
Trading gold with leverage carries a risk of significant losses. The results in this manual come from backtests in the Strategy Tester; live results will differ. Past results, whether tested or live, do not guarantee future results.
Lucky Dogs Trading Systems
