Equity Drawdown Was 1.07 to 5.74 Times Balance Drawdown in 10 EA Backtests: One EA Shows 7.45% vs 42.80%

We took the MT5 backtest report of each of our listed EAs and put two drawdown figures from the same report side by side: the balance drawdown (closed trades only) and the equity drawdown (open trades included). This article uses backtests only. It contains no forward-account figures. Figures are as of 2026-10-21.

- Across 10 backtests the equity drawdown was 1.07 to 5.74 times the balance drawdown; the median is 1.33 times. In percentage points the gap runs from 0.80 (GOLD TRIPWIRE) to 35.35 (GOLD KING v6).

- In 8 of the 10 the gap is under 6 points. The two outliers are GOLD KING v6 (balance drawdown 7.45%, equity drawdown 42.80%) and BITCOIN COMET (14.06% and 26.76%, a gap of 12.70 points).

- GOLD KING v6 has a lower balance drawdown (7.45%) than 5 of the other 9 EAs, yet the highest equity drawdown in the table (42.80%). Read on the balance figure alone it looks like one of the calmest EAs; on the equity figure it is the deepest.

- A long maximum holding time does not by itself predict a big gap. ATLAS held one trade for 168.0 days and its gap is 3.45 points (1.21 times); GOLD KING v6's longest hold is 108.7 days and its gap is 35.35 points.

- Every number in the table comes from the MT5 Strategy Tester report of that EA, so the return, the two drawdowns and the holding time describe the same test. The ratio and the gap are our own arithmetic on the two reported drawdowns: equity drawdown divided by balance drawdown, and equity minus balance in percentage points.

- The balance drawdown only sees the account balance, which changes when a trade closes. The equity drawdown also sees floating profit and loss of trades that are still open, so an EA that holds trades through deep adverse moves shows a bigger equity figure. The site also lists a maximum drawdown measured on the settings of the listed version; that is a third kind of figure and it is not in this table.

- The tests cover different periods, different timeframes and different data quality (from 5% to 100% real ticks), so compare the figures inside one row, not one row against another.

- TRINITY is not in this article: its report details are not in our data, so it has no balance or equity drawdown to compare. Returns are the report's total return on the test deposit; several tests compound, so they are not comparable between rows either.

EA | Test period and data | Balance drawdown (MT5 report, whole test) | Equity drawdown (MT5 report, whole test) | Gap (points) | Equity / balance | Total return (MT5 report) | Longest holding (h:m:s, days)

GOLD KING v6 | M1 (2019.01.01 - 2026.06.01), 5% real ticks | 7.45% | 42.8% | 35.35 | 5.74x | 6,177.7% | 2608:36:38 (108.7)

BITCOIN COMET | H4 (2018.01.01 - 2025.12.31), 98% | 14.06% | 26.76% | 12.70 | 1.90x | 12,164.8% | 3243:34:40 (135.1)

ETHEREUM EA | H4 (2019.01.01 - 2026.06.28), 100% real ticks | 6.7% | 10.33% | 3.63 | 1.54x | 323.8% | 377:31:45 (15.7)

AIFW | M5 (2023.01.01 - 2026.09.01), 99% | 3.14% | 4.6% | 1.46 | 1.46x | 22.6% | 471:10:40 (19.6)

DONCHIAN ENGINE | H1 (2017.01.01 - 2026.06.01), 100% real ticks | 7.31% | 10.34% | 3.03 | 1.41x | 165.2% | 83:33:30 (3.5)

GOLD NEURON | M30 (2004.01.01 - 2026.09.01), 100% real ticks | 22.84% | 28.5% | 5.66 | 1.25x | 4,160.4% | 1177:20:14 (49.1)

GOLD VIPER | M30 (2019.01.01 - 2026.09.01), 8% real ticks | 19.6% | 24.09% | 4.49 | 1.23x | 19,565.4% | 381:20:32 (15.9)

ATLAS | H4 (2019.01.01 - 2026.06.28), 100% | 16.29% | 19.74% | 3.45 | 1.21x | 4,941.0% | 4032:00:00 (168.0)

GOLD TRIPWIRE | M15 (2020.01.01 - 2026.10.14), 11% real ticks | 6.28% | 7.08% | 0.80 | 1.13x | 760.4% | 6:56:25 (0.3)

MEGAMAX DONCHIAN | H1 (2017.01.01 - 2026.06.01), 100% | 15.19% | 16.27% | 1.08 | 1.07x | 2,155.4% | 83:36:40 (3.5)

Maximum holding time is shown as hours:minutes:seconds from the report, with days in brackets (our division by 24). Sorted by the equity/balance ratio, largest first.

GOLD KING v6 and BITCOIN COMET are the two rows where the gap is more than 10 points, and both also hold trades for a long time (108.7 and 135.1 days at the longest). But ATLAS holds for 168.0 days with a small gap, so duration is not the cause. What the gap actually measures is how far open trades floated against the account at the worst moment. The report does not give us that per trade, so we do not estimate it; we only state the size of the gap.

Look at the other end as well. GOLD TRIPWIRE (longest hold 6:56:25) and MEGAMAX DONCHIAN (83:36:40) have gaps of 0.80 and 1.08 points. For them, a balance drawdown is a fair stand-in for what the account felt. For the two outliers it is not.

- Size from the equity drawdown, not the balance drawdown. If a balance figure of 7.45% were read as the worst case, a 42.80% equity swing in the same test would be a surprise.

- When two EAs are compared on drawdown, check that both figures are the same kind. A balance figure next to an equity figure makes the first look safer than it is.

- A backtest drawdown is a past measurement on one history, not a limit. A future drawdown can be deeper. Nothing here is a promise of future results.

Related reading: the drawdown you can actually hold, and how a backtest compares with forward results, are covered in earlier articles in this series.