The Best Year Made 28.8% to 56.5% of Net Profit in 8 EA Backtests. By Return, a Different Year Is Best in 6 of 8

We took the published MT5 backtests of 8 of our EAs, split each by calendar year, and asked how much of the whole-test net profit the single best year produced. This article uses backtests only. It contains no forward-account figures. Figures are as of 2026-10-18.

- The best year by net profit produced 28.8% (GOLD VIPER) to 56.5% (ETHEREUM TREND) of the whole-test net profit. In 4 of the 8 it was 39.4% or more.

- The best year by money and the best full year by return on the opening balance were the same year in only 2 of the 8 (GOLD KING 2025, BITCOIN COMET 2021). In the other 6 they differ.

- In 5 of the 8 the best year by money was 2024 or 2025, late years when the balance was already large.

- With the best year removed, every one of the 8 still has a positive net profit from the other years combined. The smallest remainder is 11,432.74 (DONCHIAN ENGINE, free).

- 4 of the 8 had full calendar years with a net loss: MEGAMAX DONCHIAN 3 of 9, DONCHIAN ENGINE 2 of 9, ETHEREUM TREND 2 of 7, GOLD NEURON 9 of 22.

- A whole-test total is a sum of unequal years. It tells you less about a typical year than the table below does.

- Each closed trade is assigned to the calendar year of its close time in the Strategy Tester. Commission and swap are included. Open positions at year end are not valued.

- Money amounts are in the test account currency. Every test starts from a 10,000 deposit.

- Return is the year's net profit divided by the balance at the start of that year. A year that does not cover a full 12 months is marked partial and is not ranked by return. 2026 is partial in 7 of the 8 tests; BITCOIN COMET's test ends on 2025-12-31.

- The drawdown in this article is the balance drawdown, which is measured on closed-trade balance only. The year column is the largest fall from a balance peak to the next low inside that year, with the opening balance as the first peak. The last column is the balance drawdown from the MT5 report for the whole test. An equity drawdown, which includes open trades, is larger. For GOLD KING the whole-test equity drawdown is 42.8% against a balance drawdown of 7.45%. We do not put the two kinds in one column.

- TRINITY and AIFW are not in this article: the original report files behind their published backtests are not in our breakdown, so we could not split them by year.

EA | Test period and data | Best year by net profit (net profit, trades) | Share of whole-test net profit | Return on that year's opening balance | Balance drawdown inside that year | Best full year by return (year, return) | Full years with a net loss | Balance drawdown (MT5 report, whole test)

ETHEREUM TREND | H4, 2019.01.01-2026.06.28, 100% real ticks | 2025 (18,289.12, 28) | 56.5% | 71.9% | 3.8% | 2024 (105.8%) | 2 / 7 | 6.7%

GOLD KING | M1, 2019.01.01-2026.06.01, 5% real ticks | 2025 (267,267.26, 655) | 43.3% | 164.5% | 7.5% | 2025 (164.5%) | none / 7 | 7.45%

ATLAS PORTFOLIO | H4, 2019.01.01-2026.06.28, 100% | 2024 (208,367.21, 185) | 42.2% | 116.8% | 14.7% | 2022 (203.8%) | none / 7 | 16.29%

GOLD NEURON | M30, 2004.01.01-2026.09.01, 100% real ticks | 2024 (164,112.88, 136) | 39.4% | 118.9% | 11.0% | 2013 (222.0%) | 9 / 22 | 22.84%

MEGAMAX DONCHIAN (USDJPY) | H1, 2017.01.01-2026.06.01, 100% | 2022 (69,332.23, 76) | 32.2% | 106.4% | 11.1% | 2021 (471.2%) | 3 / 9 | 15.19%

DONCHIAN ENGINE (free) | H1, 2017.01.01-2026.06.01, 100% real ticks | 2022 (5,089.81, 76) | 30.8% | 34.8% | 4.4% | 2021 (37.3%) | 2 / 9 | 7.31%

BITCOIN COMET | H4, 2018.01.01-2025.12.31, 98% | 2021 (365,383.05, 103) | 30.0% | 351.7% | 13.4% | 2021 (351.7%) | none / 8 | 14.06%

GOLD VIPER | M30, 2019.01.01-2026.09.01, 8% real ticks | 2025 (563,513.53, 1,257) | 28.8% | 63.9% | 16.7% | 2020 (194.0%) | none / 7 | 19.6%

The tests cover different periods and different data quality, so compare the numbers inside one row, not the rows with each other. The best year's drawdown, the return and the whole-test balance drawdown come from the same test as the yearly split.

Several of these tests compound: position size grows with the balance. GOLD VIPER began 2025 with a balance of 882,080.16, which is 88.2 times its 10,000 deposit. In 2025 it made 563,513.53 (63.9% on that opening balance, 28.8% of the whole-test profit). Its best full year by return is 2020 at 194.0%, which made 40,216.66, or 2.1% of the whole-test profit.

MEGAMAX DONCHIAN shows the same thing from the other side. Its best return was 471.2% in 2021, but it opened that year with only 11,404.20 and made 53,738.38. 2022 returned less (106.4%) on a much larger balance and made 69,332.23, the most of any year.

So a share of the total profit mostly tells you where the balance was large. It is a poor guide to when the strategy worked best. For that, read the return column.

ETHEREUM TREND made 18,289.12 in 2025, which is 56.5% of its whole-test profit, from 28 trades out of 154 (18.2% of its trades). The other years together made 14,089.23. Its best full year by return is 2024 at 105.8%, and 2019 and 2020 were net losses. With 154 trades in total, a handful of trades in two years carry the result, so we would not treat its average year as a prediction.

GOLD KING, ATLAS PORTFOLIO, BITCOIN COMET and GOLD VIPER had no full calendar year with a net loss in their tests. The other four did. GOLD NEURON's test is the longest (22 full years from 2004), and 9 of those 22 years ended below zero. 2026 is partial in 7 of the 8 tests, and for MEGAMAX DONCHIAN, DONCHIAN ENGINE, ETHEREUM TREND and GOLD NEURON it is also a net loss so far. We do not count it above because the year is not finished.

- Ask for the year-by-year table, not only the total. A total of 617,772.13 (GOLD KING) says nothing about whether 2025 alone made 43.3% of it.

- When you compare years, compare returns. When you compare drawdowns, compare the same kind over the same period.

- The best year in a backtest is the one least likely to repeat at the same size. We show it so that you can see how much of the total depends on it.

- These are historical simulations. They describe how a past test spread across years, not how future years will go, and no figure here is a promise of future results.

The two EAs discussed most in this article: ETHEREUM TREND https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/182358 · ATLAS PORTFOLIO https://www.mql5.com/en/market/product/182751