Beagle Gold in 10 minutes: the 2 filters we leave off, and what they cost in backtests
This is the guide to Beagle Gold, the gold (XAUUSD) Expert Advisor for MetaTrader 5 by Lucky Dogs Trading Systems. Getting Beagle running takes about 10 minutes, and the one decision that matters is the risk profile: what one trade costs at its stop, from 1% to 5% of the balance. Two optional filters come switched off, and section 6 shows why: what each one cost in our backtests. After that, Beagle does the work.
In this manual: 1. Before you install · 2. Installation · 3. Choosing a profile · 4. Settings · 5. Drawdown protection · 6. The 2 filters we leave off · 7. The panel · 8. Running 24 hours (VPS) · 9. Backtesting · 10. Shared accounts and prop firms · 11. Technical questions · 12. Support
1. Before you install
| Platform | MetaTrader 5, hedging account. Results were measured on a hedging account; at most two trades can be open |
| Symbol | Gold quoted in USD, under any name (XAUUSD, XAUUSD+, GOLD, XAUUSD.m...) |
| Broker | Any server time zone: Beagle detects your broker's time zone on its own, with nothing to set |
| Account | From 1,000 USD; 1,750 USD or more recommended on the default Moderate profile (3,500 USD on Conservative). Section 3 explains why |
| Leverage | 1:100 or higher, on any profile. Our backtests use 1:100 |
| Terminal | Every stop sits on the broker's server, but Beagle looks after each trade while it is open: keep the terminal on. VPS recommended (section 8) |
2. Installation
- Buy or rent Beagle Gold on its Market page: https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/201638
- In MetaTrader, open the Market tab and install it from Purchased.
- In the Navigator, Beagle shows up under Expert Advisors > Market.
- Open one gold chart, on any timeframe, and drag Beagle onto it.
- On the Inputs tab, choose your 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 and Gold ticked, and the account shown as Hedging.
Use only one chart per account, with one copy of Beagle.
3. Choosing a profile
The profile is the main setting. It sets what one trade can cost at its stop, and with it the lot and how fast the account can grow.
Backtest results, starting from 10,000 USD at the beginning of each year, in the Strategy Tester with real ticks and 1:100 leverage. Each cell shows the year's return / that year's maximum equity drawdown, measured on every tick:
| Profile | 2026 through October | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | One trade at its stop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | +46% / 5% | +60% / 4% | +9% / 8% | +3% / 17% | up to 1% of balance |
| Moderate (default) | +133% / 12% | +185% / 8% | +13% / 17% | +12% / 27% | up to 2% |
| Balanced | +269% / 16% | +379% / 13% | +20% / 25% | +12% / 43% | up to 3% |
| Aggressive | +500% / 18% | +684% / 17% | +22% / 32% | +20% / 52% | up to 4% |
| Maximum | +768% / 22% | +1,209% / 20% | +22% / 39% | +17% / 62% | up to 5% |
The lot is rounded down, so a trade at its stop costs up to the profile's figure, gaps aside. On Moderate, the worst day in the backtests was 4.3%, and a Monday gap made the worst trade cost up to 1.4 times the planned amount. 2025 and 2026 were exceptional years for gold, with the lot compounding: they are not a rate to project forward. If gold goes back to moving the way it did in 2023 and 2024, those are the years to compare against.
Why 1,750 USD on Moderate. The lot never goes below 0.01, and in our 2025-2026 backtests one trade at its stop cost about 35 USD per 0.01 lot. On Moderate, 2% of the account reaches 35 USD at about 1,750 USD; on Conservative, 1% reaches it at about 3,500 USD; on Balanced and the higher profiles, at about 1,000 USD. Below that, the lot stays at the 0.01 minimum and a stop costs about 35 USD, more than the profile says, and a weak year would cut deeper than the tables show. On 1,500 USD, for example, Conservative and Moderate trade the same 0.01 lot, and a stop costs about 2.3% of the account on both. So below about 3,500 USD, the choice between the two makes no difference yet. On 1,000 USD, about 3.5% on any profile.
Three questions to pick your profile:
- 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.
- How large is the account? From about 1,750 USD, Moderate works as described; Conservative needs about 3,500 USD. Below that, see the paragraph above.
- Is this your first time with Beagle? Start on Conservative. After a month live, if it behaves the way you expected, move up one profile.
4. Settings, one by one
| Group | Setting (as shown in MT5) | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| RISK | Risk profile | Conservative, Moderate, Balanced, Aggressive or Maximum: the estimated cost of one trade at its stop, from 1% to 5% (section 3) | Moderate |
| RISK | Lot mode | Automatic, by the risk profile (grows with the account), or a fixed lot size | Automatic |
| RISK | Fixed lot size | The lot of each trade, in fixed lot mode only | 0.01 |
| RISK | Automatic lot calculated on | Balance, equity or a fixed amount (Beagle'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 entry | Safety cap: no trade goes above this lot, in either lot mode (0 = no cap) | 0 |
| ACCOUNT PROTECTION | Account drawdown protection | Off, or a limit in % of balance or in money, with three actions: close all trades and continue, close all trades and stop the EA, or alert only (section 5) | Off |
| ACCOUNT PROTECTION | Drawdown limit | The limit, in % or in money, depending on the mode chosen | 0 |
| NEWS | Pause new entries on FOMC and US payroll days | No new trades on Federal Reserve decision days and US payroll days (section 6) | Off |
| WEEKEND | Short Friday | No new trades on Friday from this hour, in GMT+2 (GMT+3 in summer), which Beagle converts to your broker's time zone. Trades already open are not closed (section 6). 0 = off | 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; your own colors come back when you remove the EA | On |
| GENERAL | Magic number | The base number Beagle uses to identify its trades (section 11) | 48610000 |
| GENERAL | Order comment | The text shown on the orders | Beagle |
That is the whole list. There is no set file to download: the profile is the setup.
5. Drawdown protection
- Close all trades and continue: once the limit is crossed, Beagle closes its open trades and keeps trading.
- Close all trades and stop the EA: closes the trades and stays stopped, with the panel showing DD STOP, even after a terminal restart. To trade again, remove the EA from the chart and attach it again, or change its settings.
- Alert only: shows the alert and sets the panel to ATTENTION, without closing anything.
The protection looks at the open loss of Beagle's trades, compared with the balance (in % mode) or with an amount of money. Losses from other EAs on the same account, and losses already closed, don't count. The stop on each trade is a separate thing: it is always on the server, even with the protection off.
6. The 2 filters we leave off: news and Short Friday
Both are off by default, and every number in our tables is with them off. We measured each one in the same continuous backtest (January 2023 to October 2026, 10,000 USD, Moderate), one setting at a time. The short version: on Beagle, both cost return, and on Moderate they did not lower the drawdown.
- Pause new entries on FOMC and US payroll days: live, it uses MetaTrader's own calendar; in the Strategy Tester, a calendar built into Beagle, so it works in backtests too. Switched on, the return went from +851% to +791%, the drawdown from 27% to 32% and the trades from 1,657 to 1,537. With a fixed lot of 0.01, the return went from +35% to +33% and the drawdown from 2.3% to 2.5%; the worst day stayed the same. Turn it on if your account's rules restrict trading on those days.
- Short Friday: no new trades on Friday from the hour you set. In the backtests, 17 of 1,657 trades were held over a weekend, always with the stop on the server. With the cutoff at hour 12, 7 of those 17 no longer were, and the return went from +851% to +646%, with a 32% drawdown; with the cutoff at hour 15, 3, with a return of +717% and a 28% drawdown. Trades already open are not closed: if your account cannot hold positions over the weekend, close them yourself on Friday.
7. The panel
- Header: Beagle's status (ACTIVE, NEWS PAUSE, MARKET CLOSED, DD STOP or ATTENTION) and the server time.
- Account: balance, equity, free margin, leverage and the account type (hedging or netting).
- Execution: the current spread, the average slippage of recent orders and the ping, plus the checks for Algo Trading and the gold symbol.
- Risk: profile, the next entry's lot and the cap, open trades and open P/L, and the drawdown of Beagle itself (not of the whole account), current and maximum, with a Reset button.
- Results: today, this week, this month and all time: number of trades, P/L and %, plus the last trade and the average trade. A trade is one position, commission and swap included.
8. Running 24 hours: VPS
The stop is on the server, so a terminal that shuts down never leaves a trade unprotected. But Beagle looks after 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 built-in VPS: in the Navigator, under Accounts, right-click your account and choose "Register a Virtual Server". Pick a plan and migrate your charts and EAs. Beagle then runs on the server.
- Your own Windows VPS, ideally close to your broker's server, with MetaTrader open at all times.
Things to watch:
- After migrating to the VPS, don't leave the same Beagle running on your own computer: that would be two copies trading the same account. Close the local chart or turn off Algo Trading locally.
- On MetaTrader's VPS the panel isn't shown, because there is no screen. Follow it through the virtual hosting journal in your terminal.
- Changed a setting? Migrate again so the VPS gets the change.
9. Backtesting
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. These are the settings we used for our tables:
| Symbol | Your broker's gold symbol |
| Timeframe | Any |
| Dates | One year at a time, for example 2025.01.01 to 2025.12.31; or January 2023 to today, for the continuous run |
| Modeling | Every tick based on real ticks |
| Deposit and leverage | 10,000 USD, 1:100 |
| Inputs | The profile you want to check; everything else at default |
- Why real ticks: it is the only mode that uses the prices that actually traded. The other modes rebuild them from bars, and the result can change a lot. 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 tick data for that period.
- Watch the panel: tick visual mode in the tester to follow the panel during the test.
- Time zone: any server time zone, with nothing to set. On another broker's history, the tester can differ slightly from ours.
- Why your number won't match ours exactly: spread, commission, swap and tick data vary between brokers. In the tester, orders fill on real ticks; a live account adds latency and more slippage. Our numbers use real ticks from Vantage (XAUUSD+).
10. Shared accounts and prop firms
Beagle shares an account well with other EAs, and it works on prop firms with a fixed lot sized to the firm's limits: 0.01 for every 6,500 USD of account. To share: set "Automatic lot calculated on" to a fixed amount, Beagle's slice of the account (1,750 USD or more on Moderate, 3,500 USD on Conservative), and keep other EAs' magic numbers at least 10,000 away (section 11). For a prop firm: "Lot mode" on Fixed lot size, the same value in "Max lot per entry", and the drawdown protection in "close all trades and stop the EA" mode at 4.5%. Below 6,000 USD of account, even 0.01 is too large for this rule. The guide, with the lot table from 10,000 to 200,000 USD and the settings, is here: https://www.mql5.com/en/blogs/post/777877.
11. Technical questions
My terminal restarted with a trade open. What now?
Nothing to do: the trade stayed protected by its stop on the server, and when the terminal comes back Beagle picks it up again.
Can I change the chart timeframe?
Yes. The chart timeframe doesn't change how it trades.
How many trades does it open at the same time?
At most two trades can be open at once; results were measured on a hedging account.
I run another EA on the same account. Which magic number should it use?
Keep any other EA's magic number at least 10,000 away from Beagle's.
How often does it trade?
In the backtests, 36 trades a month on average, about 8 a week. Some days have none: Beagle only trades when its conditions line up.
Can I run it on other symbols?
Beagle is built and tested for gold quoted in USD. On any other symbol it says so once in the log.
12. Support and community
- The Lucky Dogs channel on MQL5 (news and releases of all our EAs): https://www.mql5.com/en/channels/021c0d9e2157dd01
- The Lucky Dogs users' group on MQL5 (setups, results and questions about all our EAs): https://www.mql5.com/en/messages/02ac45d27c5ddd01
- One-on-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
