Mcginley Pacekeeper EA

McGinley Dynamic grid EA for traders who want the first order placed when price crosses a line that speeds up on its own when the market runs and slows down when it stalls. One job: start a grid only on a closed-bar cross of John McGinley's Dynamic (1990), with the main trend behind it. Mechanism: McGinley Dynamic 14 / k 0.6 computed inside the EA, a Range Guard and an EMA 200, then an ATR-spaced grid that banks small closures.

Mcginley Pacekeeper EA is a McGinley Dynamic grid EA for MetaTrader 5. Why adaptive: the line's step is (price - line) divided by k x N x (price / line)^4, so when price pulls away the ratio term shrinks the divisor and the line catches up, and when price sits on top of it the line moves at a calm 14-bar pace; it hugs moves without the lag of a fixed moving average.

Tested on: EURUSD H1, $10,000, default inputs, 2025.01.01 to 2026.09.30: net +1,507.68, maximal equity drawdown 346.13 (3.33%), 647 trades, profit factor 3.16, no stop-out, no margin refusal.

Minimum deposit: EURUSD H1 money drawdown in our test was 346.13 at the default 0.01 first lot, so start with at least $2,500; XAUUSD D1 drew down 11.89 on 6 trades, start with at least $500. These are floors from one test, not a safe zone; deposits below $10,000 were not run.

Try it free first: load Mcginley Pacekeeper EA in the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester with visual mode on, default inputs, EURUSD H1. Every cross it accepts gets an arrow; on the live chart every cross a guard refuses is shown as a grey dot.

The trade lifecycle in four verbs. It tracks price with the self-adjusting McGinley line, waits for a closed bar to cross that line with the trend behind it, opens the first level and spaces the next ones by ATR, then banks groups of orders as soon as their joint result clears the target.

Plain risk up front. This IS a grid. It adds to losing positions and uses no stop loss by default. Defaults: 0.01 first lot, additive steps of 0.01, ATR spacing with a 50 point floor, hedge cycle off, margin-level safety off. Limits stop new levels; they never force-close the book.

A LINE THAT KEEPS PACE

A normal moving average is a fixed-speed follower: in a fast market it falls behind, in a slow one it wanders around price and invites false crosses. John McGinley, a market technician and editor of the Journal of Technical Analysis, published his Dynamic in 1990 as a tracking line rather than an average. It measures how far price is from the line and changes its own speed by the fourth power of that ratio. A sharp move pulls the line along quickly; a quiet market lets it drift slowly beside price. The result is fewer separations and whipsaws, and a cross that means price really left the line behind.

Five things to know first

• Entry: a closed bar finishes above the McGinley line after the previous one finished at or below it (BUY), or the mirror for SELL. A slope-turn mode is included as an alternative. Accepted signals do not repaint.
• Calculated inside the EA from bar closes with the classic settings: period 14, constant k 0.6. No indicator file, no DLL, no web request.
• A Range Guard skips quiet boxes and an EMA 200 filter keeps entries on the side of the main trend.
• A new Stretch Guard is built in and ships switched OFF. We tested it on and off; on EURUSD H1 it removed 55 trades and lowered profit per unit of drawdown, so we did not turn it on. The numbers are below.
• No stop loss and no forced close-all. Limits stop new levels; the open book stays under management.

Start here (5 minutes)

1. Attach it to EURUSD H1 and leave every input at its default.

2. Set RunMode to Scan only for the first session. The panel shows each plan; no order is sent.

3. Look at the arrows and grey dots on the chart: they show which past McGinley crosses the guards would have taken or refused.

4. Check your balance against the minimum-deposit line above, then press ARMED on the panel.

5. Repeat the tester runs below on your own broker's data before any real money; spread, swap and commission differ between brokers. More than one chart? Give each copy its own EAMagicNumber and HedgeMagicNumber.

Reproduce our numbers

Strategy Tester, default inputs, 1 minute OHLC, leverage 1:100, 2025.01.01 to 2026.09.30, one broker's demo data. Same settings, same period, and you should land close to these:

• EURUSD H1, $10,000: net +1,507.68, maximal equity drawdown 346.13 (3.33%), 647 trades, profit factor 3.16. No stop-out, no margin refusal.
• EURUSD H1, $1,000,000: net +1,507.68, maximal equity drawdown 346.13 (0.03%), 647 trades. No stop-out, no margin refusal.
• XAUUSD D1, $10,000: net +17.27, maximal equity drawdown 11.89 (0.12%), 6 trades, no losing closed trade. No stop-out, no margin refusal.
• XAUUSD D1, $1,000,000: net +17.27, maximal equity drawdown 11.89 (0.00%), 6 trades. No stop-out, no margin refusal.

Read these as one past stretch, not a forecast. Money drawdown is the same at both deposits because lots do not grow with the balance, so it is a far bigger share of a small account. The guards and filters were set once by judgement on this same period, which flatters them. Six gold trades in 21 months prove nothing about gold. Netting accounts were not verified.

The Stretch Guard: on or off, in numbers

The idea: when a single long candle carries the close far past the line, the cross arrives late and the grid starts at a stretched price. The guard refuses a signal when the close sits more than a set number of ATR away from the McGinley line. We tested a maximum of 1.5 ATR against the guard off, same period, same settings:

• EURUSD H1, $10,000: off (the default), net +1,507.68, drawdown 346.13 (3.33%), 647 trades, profit factor 3.16. On, net +1,356.55, drawdown 346.13 (3.34%), 592 trades, profit factor 3.25.
• XAUUSD D1, $10,000: identical both ways (net +17.27, drawdown 11.89, 6 trades): no gold signal was stretched that far.

What did the guard refuse? 55 of 647 EURUSD trades. Profit factor rose a little, but the worst drawdown did not fall, so profit per unit of drawdown went from about 4.36 to about 3.92. That is why it ships off. If you prefer fewer late entries over the larger result, set InpMGMaxGapATR to 1.5 and test it on your own broker.

Why the McGinley Dynamic

A grid needs one clean starting gun, then it needs the engine to work. The McGinley Dynamic is a good gun for three reasons. It is built from closes only, so it means the same on every broker. It adjusts its own speed to how far price has run, so the same 14 / 0.6 settings behave sensibly on a quiet pair and a volatile metal. And because the line stays close to price, a close on the other side of it is a real change of side, not a drift. The honest costs: after a sharp reversal it still needs a bar or two to turn, and a long one-way trend holds the book open. The Range Guard, the trend filter and the signal gap are there for exactly that.

One cycle, step by step

1. Track. Each new bar moves the McGinley line towards the latest close by (close - line) / (k x N x (close / line)^4), never more than the full distance.

2. Cross. In the default mode a closed bar must finish on the other side of the line from the bar before it. In slope mode the line itself must turn up (BUY) or down (SELL).

3. Stretch Guard. Off by default. When set, the signal close may sit at most that many ATR from the line.

4. Range Guard. The last 20 bars must span at least 5 ATR, so tight boxes are skipped.

5. Trend filter. By default the close must be on the matching side of the EMA 200. It can also fade that side, or be switched off.

6. Timing. Accepted signals are kept apart by a gap of bars, and a signal may wait a few bars if the level cannot be placed at once.

7. Ladder. Levels follow ATR or fixed points, with a floor, a ceiling and an optional freeze. BUY and SELL baskets can run together or alone.

8. Banking. Groups of oldest and newest orders close when their joint result, after swap and commission, clears the target. If the oldest order is too heavy, a slice of it is closed instead.

9. Safety checks. A closure that would reopen a level at once is blocked, each leg is confirmed in deal history, failed legs are retried, and a plan is dropped if the book changed before sending.

10. Hedge cycle, optional: off by default and not exercised in our tests; when on, it holds a balanced pair on a chosen symbol and retires it in equal slices, paid by a small surcharge on closures the grid already makes.

The panel

The panel sits on the left, so the right side and the price scale stay clear. It lists symbol, magic number, a status pill, grid mode, lot step, spacing, banked result, the book, each side's closing plan and the order table. The McGINLEY MD row shows the settings (14, k 0.60), whether the last closed bar sits ABOVE or BELOW the line, whether the line is rising (UP) or falling (DN), and the bars since the last cross. The STRETCH GUARD row shows the distance of the last close from the line in ATR with OPEN, HOLD or off, the Range Guard width in ATR with its state, and the EMA side. On the live chart every cross of the last 150 bars is marked: a small arrow when accepted, a grey dot when a guard refused it. Buttons switch Armed / Scan only, Pause / Resume, chart marks and slicing. The Hedge Vault card docks under the main panel; with the hedge off it stays hidden. Nothing is drawn in a non-visual backtest.

Limits you control

No setting closes the book for you; limits only stop new levels.

Each order passes a free margin check with a safety buffer before it is sent.

Caps on levels per grid, orders per side and lot per order keep the ladder finite. MinMarginLevelPercent and MaxAccountRiskPercent start at off; set them for your own account.

An optional margin-level timeframe safety moves the signal and spacing to a higher timeframe as margin falls. It is off by default and was not exercised in our tests.

Copies are kept apart by symbol and magic number.

Scan only shows every decision without sending a single order.

Who this is for

Traders who like moving-average entries but hate lag and whipsaw; who are happy with many small closures; who prefer an EA that trades with the main trend; and who will size lots to their balance.

Who this is NOT for

• Anyone who needs a stop loss on every order. This grid has none by design.
• Anyone expecting a fixed monthly return or a fast doubling. The tested result above is modest, and it is the honest one.
• Accounts below the minimum-deposit line above.
• Small accounts running large lots unattended. A long one-way trend can hold the book open for weeks.
• Traders who want a trade on every candle. The filters keep it quiet on purpose, and on daily gold it may wait months between entries.
• Traders who want a ready-made gold system. Gold was tested only on D1 with 6 trades.
• Traders who will not test first.

Common questions

Does it repaint? Accepted signals, chart marks and both panel rows use finished bars only.

Is it the classic McGinley Dynamic? Yes: MD = MD[1] + (C - MD[1]) / (k x N x (C / MD[1])^4), with N 14 and k 0.6 by default. The step is capped at the full distance to price so the line never jumps past it.

What does k do? It scales the divisor: lower k makes the line faster and closer to price, higher k makes it calmer. Only 0.6 was backtested here.

Cross or slope mode? Cross mode waits for price to close through the line. Slope mode reacts when the line itself turns; it was not backtested here.

What did the Stretch Guard refuse? 55 of 647 EURUSD trades at 1.5 ATR, and no gold trade. Details above.

Which markets were tested? EURUSD H1 and XAUUSD D1. Everything else is for you to test.

How much should I start with? At least $2,500 for EURUSD H1 and $500 for XAUUSD D1 at the default first lot, more if you raise the lots.

What should I change first? InpMGRangeMinATR, then InpMGMaxGapATR, then InpMGPeriod. One change at a time, and look at drawdown next to net result.

Netting accounts? A separate margin cap exists for them, but netting behaviour is unverified.

All inputs

Grid levels

TradeMode - two grids, BUY and SELL, by default, or one direction only.

GridSpacePoints - level distance in fixed spacing mode (25).

GridSpaceMultiplier - above 1.0 widens deeper levels (1.0 = even).

MaxGridLevels - most levels in one grid (1000).

UpDirectionIsBuy - which side an up move arms.

EAMagicNumber - number on grid orders (9773310).

GridOrderComment - text on grid orders (MGDW).

OneOrderPerBar - at most one new level per bar.

Lots

InitialLotSize - volume of the first level (0.01).

LotSizingMode - additive by default, multiply as the alternative.

LotMultiplier - factor per level in multiply mode (1.25).

LotAddStep - step per level in additive mode (0.01; 0 uses the starting lot).

MaxOrderVolume - largest single order (1.0).

UseAutoLot - links the starting lot to balance (off).

AutoLotBaseBalance - balance that matches the starting lot (1000).

AutoLotAllowDecrease - lets auto lot go below the starting lot (off).

ATR spacing

GridSpacingMode - ATR by default, fixed points as the alternative.

ATRTimeframe - ATR timeframe (current chart).

ATRPeriod - ATR length (14).

ATRSpacingFactor - spacing as a multiple of ATR (1.0).

ATRBarShift - ATR bar; 1 is the last finished bar.

ATRMinSpacingPts - lowest spacing in points (50; 0 none).

ATRMaxSpacingPts - highest spacing in points (5000; 0 none).

ATRFreezeOnStart - keeps one spacing for the whole cycle (off).

Profit target

DesiredProfitPerClosure - base target in account currency (2.0).

ProfitMultiplier - final scale, 1.00 to 2.00.

ProfitTargetMode - scaled by default: bigger, deeper books aim higher.

ProfitVolumePower - how closing volume lifts the target (1.0; 0 off).

ProfitDepthBonus - extra target per additional open level (0.10).

ProfitMaxMultiple - scaled target ceiling in multiples of the base (50).

ProfitMaxReachFraction - keeps the target inside this share of one grid step (0.50).

Fragment scanner

UseMultiLegScan - checks multi-order groups before the plain pair (on).

MaxOldestLegs - most old orders in one closure (3).

MaxNewestLegs - most new orders in one closure (6).

ScanPriority - ranking of qualifying groups; largest group first by default.

NeverBankLessThanPair - a group must also beat the pair target (on).

RequireCloseVolumeExceedsTarget - newest volume must be above oldest volume (on).

MinCloseVolumeRatio - required ratio of those volumes (1.5).

Target slicing

EnableTargetSlicing - allows part-closing the oldest order (on).

FragProfitWeightPower - profit weight per closing lot (1.5).

FragMinSlicePercent - smallest slice, percent of the target order (20).

FragAllowMultiCloser - several new orders may fund one slice (on).

FragPreferFullClosure - a full closure wins when both are possible (on).

Reopen guard

ReopenGuard - blocks closures that would reopen a level at once (step based).

ReopenGuardCushion - safe distance as a share of one step (0.90).

Account protection

MinMarginLevelPercent - no new levels below this margin level (0 off).

MaxAccountRiskPercent - no new levels beyond this floating loss, percent of balance (0 off).

NetMaxMarginPercent - netting only: cap on net position margin, percent of equity (5.0).

MaxTotalOrders - absolute order cap per side (1000).

Execution and checks

RunMode - Armed or Scan only.

CloseSequence - order in which legs are sent; oldest first by default.

MaxSlippagePoints - allowed slippage (30).

MaxSpreadPoints - no trading above this spread (7500).

MinSecondsBetweenClosures - pause between closures per side (5).

CloseAttemptsPerLeg - attempts before the retry queue (3).

VerifyTimeoutSeconds - how long a stuck leg is followed (90).

DeferWhenMarketClosed - waits for the session instead of halting (on).

MarketClosedRetrySeconds - retry spacing while orders are refused (30).

AutoResumeAfterSeconds - a halt clears itself after this many seconds (300; 0 waits for you).

NoPartialRetryMinutes - partial closes tried again this many minutes after a broker refusal (15; 0 never).

AbortIfBookChanged - drops a plan if a leg changed (on).

UseFullCommission - counts commission on both sides (on).

CommissionPerLot - fallback figure (0 reads history).

CloseOrderComment - text on closing deals.

Hedge cycle

EnableHedgeCycle - main switch (off).

HedgeSymbols - comma list; repeat a symbol for more turns (XAGUSD).

HedgeSymbolRotation - how the next symbol is picked (per cycle).

HedgeMaxSymbolsInTester - rotation cap in the tester only (2; 0 none).

HedgeCycleLots - lots on each side of the pair (0.01).

HedgeSliceLots - lots retired per side each slice (0.01).

HedgeFragmentBonus - bonus over the slice cost (100).

HedgeBonusIsPercent - bonus is a percent; false means money (on).

HedgeMaxSurcharge - money cap per closure (0 none).

HedgeMaxSurchargePercent - largest rise of any closure target, percent (50).

HedgeMagicNumber - number on hedge legs, must differ from the grid (9773311).

HedgeReopenOnFinish - opens a new cycle when one ends (on).

HedgeStartRequiresTrade - first cycle waits for a grid order (on).

HedgeIntegritySeconds - leg balance check interval (5).

HedgeAutoRepair - repairs a lone leg automatically (on).

HedgeNakedAction - what to do with a lone leg; re-hedge by default.

HedgeMaxSpreadPoints - hedge spread limit (0 off).

HedgeSlippagePoints - hedge slippage allowance (30).

HedgeAttemptsPerLeg - attempts per hedge leg (3).

HedgeVerifyTimeout - follow time for a stuck hedge leg (90).

HedgeCommissionPerLot - fallback hedge commission (0 reads history).

HedgeOrderComment - text on hedge deals.

Weekly cash day

WeeklyCashDay - pauses new cycles and slices around withdrawals (off).

CashDayOfWeek - 0 Sunday, 1 Monday and so on (1).

CashCutoffHour - server hour after which no new slice fires (21).

Panel and chart

ShowPanel - panel on or off.

PanelX and PanelY - distance from the chart edge (12, 15).

PanelFontSize - base text size (9).

ShowArabic - second language line (on).

ShowChartMarks - plans and levels drawn on the chart (on).

MaxTableRows - order rows per grid (13).

PanelCorner - corner the panel is anchored to.

Entry trigger

EntryTriggerMode - the McGinley Dynamic strategy by default.

SignalBarShift - 1 is the last finished bar.

SignalBarsDelay - bars between accepted signals (30; 0 every).

SignalValidBars - bars a signal stays usable (3).

SignalAllowBuy and SignalAllowSell - switch each side.

SignalReverse - turns the direction around (off).

McGinley Dynamic

InpMGPeriod - McGinley period N in bars (14).

InpMGConstK - McGinley constant k; lower is faster (0.6).

InpMGMode - 0 closed bar crosses the line, 1 line slope turns (0).

InpMGMaxGapATR - Stretch Guard: largest close-to-line distance on the signal bar in ATR (0 off by default; 1.5 tested, see above).

InpMGRangeMinATR - Range Guard: least window width in ATR (5; 0 off).

InpMGRangeBars - Range Guard: window length in bars (20).

InpMGATRPeriod - ATR length for the Range and Stretch Guards (14).

InpMGTrendFilter - 1 with the EMA side, 2 against it, 0 off (1).

InpMGTrendMAPeriod - trend EMA length (200).

InpShowSignalArrows - arrow where a cycle armed (on).

InpShowMGOnChart - past McGinley crosses on the live chart, arrow or grey dot (on).

Debug

DebugMode - extra journal detail (off).

Margin timeframe safety

UseMarginTFSafety - main switch (off).

Level1MarginPct and Level1TF - at 6000 percent the work moves to M15.

Level2MarginPct and Level2TF - at 5000 percent the work moves to H1.

MarginTFHysteresisPct - recovery needed before stepping back (500).

Risk, plainly

Grid trading is risky. It adds to losing positions, uses no stop loss, and a long trend can keep the book open for a long time or, with lots too big for the balance, end in a stop-out and a heavy loss. The McGinley Dynamic is built from past closes and cannot see the next bar; adjusting its speed does not make it predictive. No profit is promised. Pick lots that survive a bad run, test on your own broker, and only risk money you can afford to lose. No DLLs or extra files are needed.

Used it in the tester or on a live account? An honest review, what worked and what did not, is the most useful thing you can leave for the next trader.