Capital SL Defender

Capital SL Defender is a free position manager for MetaTrader 5. It does not open trades. You open them, and Capital SL Defender protects them: it gives every trade a stop loss and take profit, moves the stop to break-even once the trade is in profit, locks in part of the profit as the trade grows, limits how many trades you can open in a day, and shows it all on a black and orange panel on the chart. It runs on its own, with no outside service.

For profit locks by % of TP, the TP runner, trailing stops, loss caps, sessions and news, see Capital SL Defender Pro.

1.What it does

The stop loss only ever moves forward, never back, including across timeframe changes and MT5 restarts.

2.Requirements

• MetaTrader 5 (any broker, demo or live).
• Algo Trading turned on in the MT5 toolbar.

Nothing else: no web address to allow, no token, no DLLs.

3.Installation

From the MQL5 Market: Capital SL Defender Free appears in the Navigator under Expert Advisors → Market once downloaded. Go to step 3 below.

From the source file ( CapitalSLDefenderFree.mq5 ):

1. In MT5, open File → Open Data Folder and copy the file into MQL5/Experts/ .
2. Open it in MetaEditor (F4) and compile (F7). The result should read 0 errors, 0 warnings .
3. Turn on Algo Trading in the toolbar (the button must be green).
4. Drag CapitalSLDefender Free onto the chart of the symbol you trade.
5. In the Common tab tick Allow Algo Trading, then click OK.

By default it manages the trades you open by hand on that chart's symbol. To protect every symbol from one chart, set ManageScope to every symbol.

4.Quick start

The defaults are ready to use. The inputs most traders change (the Inputs tab shows a short label for each; section 10 lists them):

1. StopLossPercent and TakeProfitPercent : what a stop-out may cost and what the TP should make, as % of your balance. Default 1 and 3.
2. SetLotSize : the lot size you usually trade, so the dashboard shows what such a trade risks.
3. MaxEntriesPerDay : how many trades a day (default 10, 0 = no limit).
4. ManageScope and MagicNumberFilter if you trade several symbols or want it to manage another EA's trades (section 10).

Then open a small trade on a demo account with no SL/TP. Within a second the EA adds them, and the trade's line on the dashboard shows the SL and how far it is to TP.

5.The dashboard

The panel sits at the top-left of the chart, below MT5's one-click Buy/Sell panel, or at the top-right. It updates once a second.

Status line: PROTECTING (green) while algo trading is allowed, ALGO TRADING OFF (red) when it isn't. On the right: what it manages (for example XAUUSD, manual trades ) and the server time.

Switches. Two rows are buttons you can click:

A click is remembered through timeframe changes and MT5 restarts. Changing the inputs resets Auto SL/TP to EnableAutoSLTP . Removing the EA from the chart forgets both.

DashboardSize Tiny shows only the status, SETTINGS, balance, equity, today's P/L, open trades and the Trading switch.

6.Stop loss and take profit

Any managed trade that opens without an SL and TP gets them within a second. A trade that already has an SL or a TP is left as it is. If the broker refuses the request (a busy server, a requote, a stop too close to price), the EA tries again on every tick until it is placed and writes the reason to the Experts log once. Once placed, it is never applied again to that trade.

SLTPMode (a dropdown) picks how the SL and TP are set.

6.1% of balance (default)

The SL goes where the trade would lose StopLossPercent (1%) of your balance, and the TP where it would make TakeProfitPercent (3%), at that trade's own lot size.

Example: $500 balance, 1% / 3%, gold at 2 decimals:

The bigger the lot, the closer the stop, so the dollar risk stays the same. 0 means no SL or no TP. If a very small lot would put a buy's SL below zero, the SL is left off and the Experts log says so.

6.2% of price, or pips

• % of price: the SL sits StopLossPercent of the entry price away and the TP TakeProfitPercent , whatever the lot size.
• Pips + R:R: the SL sits AutoSLPips (200) away and the TP RiskRewardRatio (2.0) times that. A pip is 10 points on 3- and 5-digit prices and 1 point otherwise, so on gold or BTCUSD at 2 decimals 200 pips is just 2.00. That is too close on BTCUSD, where the broker refuses it: use % of balance or % of price for crypto.

6.3The settings panel

Click SETTINGS on the ACCOUNT row and a panel opens beside the dashboard:

Changes apply at once to the RISK SETUP rows and to the next trade without SL/TP; stops already placed are not moved. A value that isn't a number or is negative is refused. The panel's values survive timeframe changes and restarts; changing the Inputs window or RESET TO INPUTS goes back to the inputs. Click X to close it.

7.Break-even and profit lock

Break-even

Once a trade has made BreakEvenTriggerUSD ($5), or BreakEvenTriggerPips (15) when the dollar trigger is 0, the SL moves to entry + BreakEvenBufferPips (1). It happens once per trade. If the SL is already past that level, nothing changes.

Profit lock

Once a trade's best profit reaches ProfitLockTriggerUSD ($25), the SL moves so you keep ProfitLockPercent (50%) of that best profit, plus ProfitLockCushionPips (5 pips). As the best profit grows, the SL follows in steps.

Example: best profit $40 → the SL locks $20 plus 5 pips. If the trade then reaches $60, the SL moves to lock $30.

Both only move the SL forward, and only to a level your broker accepts.

8.Daily entry lock

MT5 can't stop a trade from being opened, so Capital SL Defender Free closes it instead. With EnforceEntryLock = true (default), a new managed trade is closed straight away when:

• today's MaxEntriesPerDay (10) trades have already been opened, or
• the dashboard's Trading switch is INACTIVE .

Every other new managed trade counts toward today's entries. Trades already open are never closed by the lock. The day starts at DayResetTime (00:00, broker server time). Set EnforceEntryLock = false to only count, or MaxEntriesPerDay = 0 for no limit.

9.Recommended setups

Standard (1% risk, 1:3)

SLTPMode = % of balance StopLossPercent = 1 TakeProfitPercent = 3 EnableBreakEven = true ($5, +1 pip) EnableProfitLock = true (from $25, keep 50%) MaxEntriesPerDay = 5

Careful (half a percent, 1:2)

StopLossPercent      = 0.5
TakeProfitPercent    = 1
BreakEvenTriggerUSD  = 3
ProfitLockTriggerUSD = 15
MaxEntriesPerDay     = 3 

Forex in pips

SLTPMode = Pips + R:R AutoSLPips = 25 RiskRewardRatio = 2.0

10.Input reference