Drawdown Minimizer MT4

Drawdown Minimizer for MetaTrader 4 - your EAs pay in, old losers get paid off. This utility runs next to your other Expert Advisors and never opens a trade. It keeps a savings book of the net realized profit of your whole account and uses it to close the oldest losing positions of the EAs you choose - slice by slice, oldest first.

WHY IT EXISTS

Made by traders, for traders. One of our grid EAs got stuck in drawdown for months. The old positions did not come back, and they paid swap every single night. At the same time the account kept booking profits that just sat on the balance. Drawdown Minimizer connects the two.

THE SAVINGS BOOK

• Every closed trade in the account pays in: profit, swap and commission - all EAs and manual trades. Losing days count too.
• Save % decides how much of the net result goes into the book (default 100 %).
• Deposits, withdrawals, credit and bonus never count, and neither do the tool's own closes.
• Only what has been earned is spent. If the book drops below what was already spent, the reduction waits until money has been earned again.
• The book is rebuilt from the account history at every start, so a restart changes nothing. In MT4 the tool recognises its own closes by a ticket list in the terminal's MQL4\Files folder - copy the DDMin_* files from there when you move to another terminal or VPS. Without them the book starts again from zero.
• The savings book is a counter, not a separate account - the money stays on your balance and stays at risk.

OLDEST FIRST, IN SLICES

• Only losing positions of the EAs you choose are reduced - by magic number, by a magic range like 1000-1999 (for EAs that give every grid level its own magic) or by a text in the trade comment. Winners and all other positions are never touched.
• The oldest losing position goes first. A younger one is never preferred because it is cheaper. If the oldest one is blocked (spread, closed market, broker error), the next one in line is used.
• As soon as the book pays the minimum lot, the tool closes as many lot steps as the book can pay. With a large book, the first close can be a big part of the position, or all of it. A small rest is closed together with the last slice.
• Mode Whole closes complete positions only.
• At most one close per set interval, optional spread limit, retry with pause on broker errors.

YOU DECIDE WHEN

• Saving runs from the moment the tool is attached. Spending starts when the oldest target position reaches an age, when the account drawdown reaches a level, or when you press START.
• Once a trigger has fired, spending goes on even if the drawdown recovers (Keep running), until you press PAUSE or no target position is left. PAUSE always wins.
• Dry run is on by default: the journal shows what it would close, nothing is closed.
• Optional: count older profits from a start date, with a daily spending limit.

DASHBOARD

• Status, Saved, Spent, Available and today's spending.
• Open loss of the target positions and how much of it is already reduced.
• The next slice and its price, or how much is still missing.
• History chart: target load, savings, spending and account drawdown over 7 days, 30 days or all.
• Push notifications for full closes, start and pause, a daily summary, and an alert when a close fails repeatedly.

WHAT IT CHANGES - AND WHAT IT DOES NOT

• Closing a loser with saved profit does not change your equity, apart from slippage. A floating loss becomes a realized one.
• What changes is the risk: less open volume, less margin, no more swap on the closed volume, and a smaller chance that an old basket drags the account deeper.
• The price: if the market would have come back, that way back is gone for the closed slices.
• Check in dry run how your EA reacts when part of its oldest position is closed - some grid EAs size the next level from the open volume.

MT4: PARTIAL CLOSES

• When a slice is closed, MetaTrader 4 gives the rest of the position a new ticket with the comment "from #<old ticket>". The open time and the magic number stay the same.
• Drawdown Minimizer follows this chain: the rest stays the oldest position, and a comment target like Waka still matches after the comment has become "from #...".
• Your EA may not: grid EAs that identify their basket by trade comment or ticket may no longer recognise the rest. EAs that find their trades by magic number usually still see the rest, but with less volume. EAs that store ticket numbers may lose track of it. Test in dry run first, then start with Close mode Whole or a single slice.

GETTING STARTED

• Attach the utility to a separate chart (any symbol, any timeframe) - not to the chart of the EA you want to reduce.
• Enter the magic number(s), a magic range or a comment text of that EA, allow algo trading and press START.
• Watch the journal in dry run, then set Dry run to false.
• One instance per account. Hedging accounts only - not for FIFO accounts (US brokers). Set the Account History tab to All History - otherwise the book counts only the part of the history the tab shows.

Trading involves risk. Drawdown Minimizer does not predict the market and does not turn a loss into a profit - it pays old losses off with money the account has already earned.