NatTrade Fundamentals News EA

Trade the market's reaction to high-impact news, not the first spike. The EA reads the built-in MetaTrader 5 Economic Calendar, measures how far each release surprised the market (Actual vs Forecast), waits for the first volatility to settle, and enters only when the direction agrees with a trend filter. Every order is sized by risk, protected by a stop-loss and drawn on your chart.

IMPORTANT — The Economic Calendar must be available in your terminal

The news engine depends entirely on the MetaTrader 5 Economic Calendar. Before buying or running the EA, check it:

1. Open your MT5 terminal and press Ctrl+T (Toolbox).
2. Open the Calendar tab. It must list upcoming and past events with Actual / Forecast / Previous values.
3. If the tab is missing or empty, make sure the terminal is connected to the internet and to your broker's server. Some brokers distribute customised terminal builds that restrict or hide the calendar. In that case use a different broker or the standard terminal build.

The calendar is supplied to the terminal by MetaQuotes, so most brokers work, but you should always confirm it on your own account. Without calendar data the news engine cannot generate signals.

How it works

1. Reads the calendar: high-impact events of the pair's two currencies (NFP, CPI, GDP, central-bank rate decisions, PMI, retail sales, unemployment and similar Tier-1 releases).
2. Measures the surprise: a trade is considered only if Actual differs from Forecast by at least a configurable percentage (default 10%). Inverse indicators (unemployment, jobless claims) are handled correctly.
3. Decides the direction: "better than expected" for the base currency means buy, for the quote currency means sell (and the reverse).
4. Waits: default entry delay of 2 hours, to avoid the spike, the spread widening and the slippage of the release minute.
5. Confirms with the trend: a moving-average filter (default SMA 55) with slope check and minimum distance. Trades that agree with the trend are sized up (default ×1.5).
6. Manages the trade: fixed SL/TP, or the optional six-target ladder.

Three entry engines (use one or combine)

• Directional news mode: the main engine above.
• Breakout / straddle mode: arms a ± range around the price at news time and trades the side that breaks first.
• MA crossover: independent trend entries with a confirmation candle and a minimum cross distance.

Risk control

• Position size by % risk of balance (default 2%) or fixed lot, with a maximum-lot cap and a free-margin safety limit.
• Stop-loss and take-profit are attached right after entry. If they cannot be attached, the position is closed.
• Spread filter (default 3 pips), cooldown between news trades, optional kill-zone (13–15 UTC), maximum open positions, slippage limit.
• Stale-news protection: old releases are never traded after a restart.
• Reversal exit (N opposite candles) and a forced close after N candles only while price is on the losing side.
• Netting accounts are detected automatically (automatic entries limited to one position).

Optional six-target ladder ( InpUseGraduatedTP = true )

Targets at 0.5R, 1R, 1.5R, 2R, 2.5R and 3R (R = stop distance). 15% closes at each of the first five targets; the remaining 25% closes at the final take-profit. The stop moves to break-even at target 1, then to the previous target at each next one. Roughly 0.07 lot or more is needed to split every level.

NatTrade on-chart control panel

• Engine status: active or paused, and which strategies are enabled.
• Account and execution: balance, equity, spread, open-position data.
• Next economic event with a live countdown, and today's news list in your local time.
• Protection switches: on/off indicators for the trend, news-tier and spread filters.
• Editable settings form with [-] / value / [+] on every field (SL, TP, risk %, lot, maximum positions, minimum surprise, entry delay, cooldown, maximum spread, lot multiplier). Changes apply instantly and are remembered after a restart.
• PAUSE EA: blocks new entries while open trades are still managed.
• Manual BUY / SELL / CLOSE with confirmation, and SET SL, which recomputes the take-profit keeping the original risk-to-reward ratio. Push notification when the stop is changed.
• The header [-] / [+] collapses the information sections so the panel stays small.

Chart visuals

• News labels under the candle of every past release (last 14 days by default), coloured by beat or miss.
• Risk and reward zones shaded for each open trade, with a white dashed line for every target.
• The moving average used by the filter, plotted on the chart.

Broker and platform requirements

• MetaTrader 5 (not MT4), connected to the internet. Economic Calendar available in the terminal (see the check above). No DLL, no WebRequest.
• Hedging account recommended. Netting accounts work with one automatic position.
• Pairs with 3/5-digit pricing; symbol prefixes and suffixes are supported.
• Low-spread / ECN-type execution advised (default spread filter: 3 pips).
• Market execution with the symbol's standard filling type. The EA respects the broker's minimum stop distance and freeze level.
• Minimum lot 0.01. As a guide, a 20-pip stop at 2% risk on EURUSD needs roughly $100 for 0.01 lot and roughly $700 for the full six-target ladder.
• "Allow Algo Trading" ON. A VPS (24/5) is recommended.

Symbols and timeframes

• Designed for forex pairs built from USD, EUR, GBP, JPY, AUD, NZD, CAD and CHF: EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, AUDUSD, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF and their crosses.
• Default settings were developed on EURUSD, H1. Other pairs and timeframes are supported by the logic but have not been validated by the author; forward-test them on a demo account first.
• Not intended for metals, indices, oil or crypto.

Research results (read carefully)

The default values come from a 600-trial random search over 15 months of EURUSD H1 data: 86 trades, profit factor 1.63, 47.7% win rate, +624.8 pips, 171-pip maximum drawdown. These are in-sample optimisation results on historical data. They are not a live or out-of-sample result and not a promise of future profit.

Strategy Tester limitation

The MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester does not provide economic-calendar data, so news trades cannot be reproduced in a back-test. The MA-crossover engine can be back-tested; the news engine should be forward-tested on a demo account with the live calendar.

Quick start

1. Check the Calendar tab (Ctrl+T) shows events.
2. Attach the EA to a supported pair (H1 recommended) and enable Algo Trading.
3. Keep the defaults or adjust risk and SL from the panel.
4. Run on demo through several news cycles before going live.

Risk warning: trading leveraged products carries a high risk of loss. Past performance and optimisation results do not guarantee future results. Trade only with money you can afford to lose.