Halyard Gold Trend

Halyard Gold Trend is a trend-following Expert Advisor for XAUUSD. It trades only when three timeframes agree, and it puts a stop loss on every order. It holds one position at a time. It uses no grid, no martingale and no averaging down. It makes no DLL calls or web requests and does not use AI.

How it trades

• D1 regime: the last daily close must be on the trade side of the 50 EMA, and that EMA must have moved the same way over 5 days.
• H4 trend: the 20 EMA must be beyond the 50 EMA in the trade direction.
• H1 trigger: a completed H1 bar must close beyond the prior 24-bar high (for a buy) or low (for a sell). That close must be no more than 2 ATR from the H1 20 EMA, which skips late, stretched entries.
• Exits: the initial stop is 3 × H1 ATR and is sent with the order. At +1.5R the EA closes half the position (when the lot size allows) and moves the stop to breakeven. After that, an ATR chandelier stop (3 ATR from the best price since entry) ratchets on completed H1 bars. There is no fixed take profit.

Risk controls (defaults)

• Lot size is set so each trade risks 1% of equity at its stop distance.
• If the broker's minimum lot would risk more than that, the EA uses the minimum lot only when its stop loss is at most 3% of equity. On small accounts it may tighten the stop to no less than 1.5 ATR so the trade fits within that cap. Otherwise it skips the trade and writes the reason to the log.
• A 3% equity loss within a server day blocks new entries until the next day.
• If equity falls 10% below its peak, new entries pause for 5 days.
• Entries are skipped when the spread is above 0.15 × H1 ATR. You can also limit entries to set server hours (off by default).
• Before any order it checks margin, free margin, volume limits and volume step. It checks the stops level and freeze level before every order, modification and close.
• It runs on both hedging and netting accounts. On netting accounts it does not trade if another position or order already exists on the symbol.

Backtest results (honest, one year only)

All tests ran in the MT5 Strategy Tester on XAUUSD H1 with real ticks, from 2025-11-01 to 2026-11-01, starting with USD 10,000 at 1:100 leverage on JustMarkets demo data, using the default inputs.

The maximum equity drawdown over the full year was 397.00 (3.93%). The settings were chosen in at most three tuning passes, using only the tuning window. The held-out window is short, with only 13 closed deals, so treat it as a sanity check, not as proof.

Small-deposit netting checks (USD 1,000, 1-minute OHLC, 2025-11 to 2026-11):

• EURUSD H1: net 56.79 from 36 trades, equity drawdown 60.11 (5.82%).
• XAUUSD on a D1 chart: net 83.41 from only 2 trades, equity drawdown 91.02 (8.76%). Most gold signals were skipped because a 0.01 lot was too large for USD 1,000.

Neither run produced trade errors or a stop-out. The EA was designed and tested for gold. EURUSD is shown only as a technical check and is not a recommendation.

Recommendations

• Run it on XAUUSD with any chart timeframe. It reads H1, H4 and D1 bars internally.
• Use an account of at least USD 3,000 so the normal 1% sizing works. Smaller gold accounts will skip many signals.
• Choose a low-spread ECN or raw-spread account and run it 24/5 on a VPS.

Risk warning

Trading leveraged products such as gold CFDs carries a high risk of loss. These results are historical simulations over a single year, during which gold was unusually volatile. They do not guarantee future results, and live spreads, slippage and swaps can differ. There is no live signal for this EA yet. Losing streaks will happen. Never risk money you cannot afford to lose, and test it on a demo account first.