Synapse gold silver

What it does

Synapse GOLD+SILVER trades two instruments — gold (XAU) and silver (XAG) — from a single chart. It is a time-series momentum system: it enters long on a breakout of the 55-bar high while price is above the 200-period moving average, protects every position with an ATR-based stop, and rides the move with a chandelier trailing exit.

There is no grid, no martingale, no averaging down, and no position without a stop-loss.

Validated performance

Tested on OANDA real broker data over 20 years (July 2006 – July 2026), H1 timeframe, risk 1.0% per symbol, EquityLock 30%, swap costs included:

• Net profit: +778% (about 11.5% per year, compounded)
• Profit factor: 1.33
• Sharpe ratio: 1.23
• Maximum equity drawdown: 28%
• Win rate: 38.5%
• Total trades: 2,178 (about 9 per month)
• The -30% equity lock never triggered across the full 20-year window

Please read the drawdown figure carefully. This is a trend-following system: most trades are small losses and a minority of large winners carry the result. A 28% drawdown occurred within the tested period, and the automatic halt sits just above it at -30%. If the future is even slightly worse than the past, the halt can be reached. That is the intended behaviour — it caps the loss rather than letting it run.

Automatic symbol detection

You do not need to know how your broker names its metals. Leave the Symbols input blank and the EA reads the chart symbol, works out the broker prefix and suffix, and locates the gold and silver instruments of your account automatically — XAUUSD, XAUUSDm, XAUUSD.r, XAUUSD#, GOLD, m.XAUUSD and similar naming schemes are all resolved. The instruments actually selected are printed in the journal when the EA starts, so you can confirm them at a glance.

If your account offers gold but not silver, the EA runs on gold alone. If detection fails, you can still enter the names manually.

The chart the EA is attached to does not affect which instruments are traded. Attaching it to a liquid symbol is recommended simply because the EA is driven by incoming ticks.

Risk management

Position size is not fixed. For every trade the EA calculates the loss that one lot would incur over the stop distance, in your account currency, and derives the lot size from your chosen risk percentage. Volatile periods therefore produce smaller positions automatically.

Before every order the EA verifies the required margin against the free margin of the account and runs a full pre-trade check; if either fails, no order is sent.

RiskPercent is a pure scaling parameter: changing it does not change which trades are taken, only how much is risked on each. Lower it for a more conservative profile — the same trades, with proportionally smaller drawdown and return. If you raise it, raise EquityLockPct as well, otherwise a normal drawdown will trigger the halt.

An optional AutoBySwap mode measures the swap cost of your account and selects the risk percentage for you, choosing the safer setting whenever the swap is heavy or cannot be determined. It never raises risk on its own.

Requirements

• MetaTrader 5
• An account offering gold and silver CFDs together
• Recommended timeframe: H1 (the validated setting; the chart timeframe itself is irrelevant)
• Suggested minimum deposit: around 10,000 USD or equivalent. With a smaller balance the broker minimum lot can force a position larger than your risk setting intends; the EA reports this in the journal, and StrictRiskGuard can be enabled to skip such trades.
• A VPS or a machine running continuously

About costs

Gold and silver long positions pay a swap. All published figures already include swap costs measured on a real broker account, so a lighter-swap account will produce conditions better than those shown, and a heavy-swap account worse. Spread matters too: gold spreads consistently above 0.50 USD will cause frequent skipped entries.

Honest notes

• Losing months and losing years are part of this design and occur in the tested history.
• Quiet periods with no trades are normal; the system waits for breakouts.
• Positions are held over nights and weekends, including news events. All testing assumes this.
• Past results do not guarantee future performance. Testing covers the worst conditions of the last 20 years, but nothing guarantees the future stays within that range.
• The validated configuration is gold plus silver on H1 with the default parameters. Other instruments and settings can be entered but fall outside the tested range.

Default parameters