Simple Gold EA Part C

“Wait... I’ve got another trading idea.”

Well... apparently two toilet ideas still weren’t enough. :-)

After building Simple Gold EA – Part A and Part B, I continued doing what I probably spend far too much time doing:

Testing ideas.

Changing rules.

Deleting bad ideas.

Testing again.

And staring at the MT5 Strategy Tester for way too long.

Eventually, another completely different idea survived the process.

And that became:

Simple Gold EA – Part C.

Is Part C the holy grail?

Of course not.

If Part C could predict every Gold move perfectly, I probably wouldn’t be writing this description.

And yes...

I’d definitely have upgraded the toilet by now. :-)

What is Simple Gold EA – Part C?

Part C is an Expert Advisor developed specifically around Gold / XAUUSD.

Just like Parts A and B, the basic philosophy is simple:

Take an idea, define exact rules, code those rules and let the EA execute them without emotions.

No panic.

No revenge trading.

No suddenly changing your mind because one candle looks scary.

The EA simply follows its programmed logic.

Part C uses its own set of market patterns and conditions to determine when a LONG or SHORT opportunity may be present.

It then manages the position using predefined trade-management rules.

There are also filters designed to avoid certain market situations where the strategy historically performed less effectively.

I’m deliberately not going to publish every detail of the internal signal logic.

Otherwise I might as well upload the source code together with my toilet. :-)

Part C is different from Part A and Part B

Part C is not simply Part A with different settings.

And it is not Part B with another name.

It is another trading concept.

Part A, Part B and Part C were developed from different ideas and should therefore be treated as separate EAs.

Part C also includes dynamic money-management possibilities, allowing the trading volume to adapt according to account development when enabled.

It also contains trade-management features such as:

Stop Loss, Take Profit, Trailing Stop, trading-time restrictions, position management and additional internal filters.

The exact behaviour can depend on the settings you use.

Why isn’t Part C free?

Fair question.

There are plenty of free EAs on the internet.

So why charge money for this one?

Because the EA itself is only the final result.

Behind it are many hours of coding, testing, failed versions, parameter experiments, backtests and modifications.

Some ideas looked fantastic for five minutes.

Some looked fantastic for five months of historical data and then completely fell apart.

Some went straight into the digital trash bin.

Part C is the version that survived that process.

You are not paying for a promise of guaranteed profits.

There is no such promise.

You are paying for the work that went into developing, coding and testing the EA, and for being able to use the finished product yourself.

I also believe charging a reasonable price is more honest than giving away an EA for free and then trying to sell some mysterious “VIP signals”, “secret settings” or “guaranteed profit package” afterwards.

There is no secret club here.

You get the EA.

You test it.

And then you decide whether it suits your trading.

Backtests and optimized settings

I spent a considerable amount of time testing Part C in the MT5 Strategy Tester using historical Gold data.

You’ll find my SET file with tested settings attached in the settings section, so you have a starting point for your own tests.

But please understand something important:

My settings are not automatically the best settings for your broker.

Different brokers can have different:

spreads, commissions, Gold specifications, execution conditions, historical data and trading hours.

So experiment.

Run your own backtests.

Try different periods.

Try different settings.

And preferably test the EA on a demo account before risking real money.

You might even find a configuration that works better than mine.

A very important note about backtests

A beautiful backtest is still...

a backtest.

It shows what the strategy would have done on historical data under the conditions used in that particular test.

It does not tell us exactly what Gold will do tomorrow.

Past performance does not guarantee future performance.

Drawdown can be larger in the future.

Market behaviour changes.

Spreads change.

Execution changes.

And Gold occasionally decides to behave like Gold.

So if you see one of my backtest screenshots showing strong results, please don’t immediately calculate how many months it will take before you own a Ferrari.

That is not what the screenshots are meant to promise.

They show my testing.

Nothing more.

Risk and lot size

Please pay particular attention to lot size and money-management settings.

Increasing the lot size can make a backtest look much more exciting.

It can also make the drawdown much more exciting.

Usually in the wrong direction. :-)

If you use dynamic lot sizing or aggressive settings, understand what those settings do before using them with real money.

Start conservatively.

Test first.

And never assume that because a particular historical period had a certain maximum drawdown, the future maximum drawdown cannot be higher.

Why Part C?

Because after Part A and Part B...

I had another idea.

I tested it.

I coded it.

I broke it.

I fixed it.

I tested it again.

And eventually it became:

Simple Gold EA – Part C.

Will there be a Part D?

Considering where the first three ideas came from...

I probably just need another trip to the toilet. :-)

I’ll be creating more Toilet EAs in the future.

Have fun with the read, have fun testing the EA, and trade responsibly.

And remember:

Some of the best trading ideas happen on the toilet. :-)