Meridian Gold Trend

Meridian Gold Trend is a multi-strategy trend and breakout Expert Advisor for gold (XAUUSD) on H4 signals. It combines a pullback trend-following strategy and a close-confirmed breakout strategy with a rule-based market-regime filter, ATR-based position sizing at a fixed percentage of equity, a server-side stop loss and take profit on every position, an ATR trailing stop and account-level protection limits. There is no martingale, no grid and no averaging down.

The built-in defaults are the complete tested configuration (Gold All-Weather H4, 2 % risk per trade). Attach the EA to an XAUUSD chart, allow algo trading, keep the inputs as they are, and it is ready. Nothing needs to be loaded or tuned.

How it trades

• Symbol: XAUUSD only. The rules and parameters were selected on 21 years of gold data. The signal timeframe is fixed to H4 inside the EA, so the chart itself can be on any timeframe. In a one-year test with the same defaults most other symbols lost money; do not use it on other symbols.
• Strategy A, trend following: pullback-continuation entries in an ADX-confirmed trend (EMA 21 and 55, ADX 14 at or above 31), confirmed by the last completed daily bar, with RSI and over-extension filters.
• Strategy B, breakout: close-confirmed 30-bar Donchian breakouts in the direction of the daily trend, with candle-body and no-chase filters.
• Strategy C, mean reversion (Bollinger bands and RSI): included in the EA, switched off in the defaults.
• Market regime: a transparent rule-based classification (strong trend, ranging, high or low volatility, unfavourable) from ADX and ATR ratios. No entries in the unfavourable regime (extreme volatility or a very wide spread).
• Signals are evaluated once per closed H4 bar; the forming bar is never used. Entries are market orders at the open of the next bar.
• Stop loss and take profit: stop 2.5 ATR (at least 1.0 ATR, at most 5.0 ATR), target 6 times the risk distance, ATR trailing stop (3.0 ATR) from 1 R profit. Both are sent to the server together with the order.
• Position sizing: 2 % of equity per trade, computed in the account currency from the stop distance. Up to 2 positions (one trend, one breakout) at a time, at most 4 % of equity at risk in total. If the broker minimum lot would exceed the risk budget the trade is skipped, never rounded up.
• Protection limits: daily loss 6 %, weekly loss 10 %, maximum equity drawdown 40 % (stops new entries), hard equity stop 45 % (closes the EA positions), pause for the rest of the day after 5 consecutive losses, at most 5 entries per day, spread filter 15 % of ATR.
• Hedging and netting accounts are supported. Positions are identified by magic number (base + 1 to base + 3), so manual trades and other Expert Advisors are left alone.
• Economic calendar filter (live only): entries are blocked 30 minutes before and after high-impact events. The calendar is not available in the Strategy Tester, so backtests include trades that live trading would skip; live trade counts will be somewhat lower than in the tests.
• Dashboard: account, regime, open positions, performance, the exact reason when no trade is allowed, a settings panel for the live-editable inputs, pause and resume, buy and sell switches. It is drawn on live charts and in visual tests.
• CSV trade journal with entries, exits and skip reasons in the MQL5\Files\ApexQuantPro folder.

Backtest results (not a guarantee)

All figures in this section are Strategy Tester results on MetaQuotes-Demo price data, every-tick model, XAUUSD, 10,000 USD initial deposit, 1:500 leverage, built-in default inputs. They are not live results. Your broker's spreads, swaps, price data and execution will give different numbers. Run the free tester demo yourself before buying.

• January 2005 to October 2026 (21.8 years): 14.85 % compound annual growth, 33.8 % maximum equity drawdown, 689 trades (about 32 a year), profit factor 1.82, 49 % winning trades.
• Five losing calendar years in 22; the worst was 2019 at -12.4 %.
• The same run by era, same settings: 2005 to 2012 7.4 % a year with a 29.5 % maximum drawdown; 2013 to 2020 9.0 % with 33.4 %; November 2018 to October 2022 8.9 % with 22.1 %; November 2022 to October 2026 43.3 % with 16.3 %. The last block was an unusually strong period for gold; the earlier blocks are the realistic planning figure.
• With Risk per trade at 1.5 % instead of 2 %: 11.1 % a year, 25.9 % maximum drawdown, worst year -9.0 %.

Drawdowns and what the limits do

Drawdowns of 25 to 34 % of equity are a normal part of this configuration at 2 % risk per trade: the 21-year backtest contains a 33.8 % drawdown and three losing years in a row (2017 to 2019). The 40 % and 45 % protection limits are above anything seen in those 21 years. When reached they stop the EA; they do not prevent the loss that led there, and they need a manual reset from the dashboard (Settings, Reset risk latch). If you want smaller drawdowns, lower Risk per trade (1.5 % gave a 25.9 % maximum drawdown in the backtest) and accept a lower return. Do not run this EA with money whose loss would hurt you.

Recommended use

• Symbol XAUUSD, any chart timeframe (signals are H4), hedging or netting account, any account currency.
• Inputs: the defaults. Keep Preset on Custom: the named presets (Conservative, Balanced, Aggressive, Gold, Silver, Forex) are older generic starting points that replace the tested defaults with different risk, limits and session settings, and no 21-year backtest stands behind them. For a lower-risk variant change only Risk per trade to 1.5.
• Deposit: enough for 0.01 lot at 2 % risk with a 2.5 ATR stop. In the October 2025 to October 2026 backtest a 10,000 USD account traded 0.03 lot, so roughly 3,500 USD at that volatility. Below that the EA skips trades rather than over-risk; a 100 USD account made no trades at all in the test.
• One chart per account is enough. For a second instance on the same account change Magic number base.
• Run it on a VPS or a terminal that is on 24/5: the trailing stop and the protection limits are managed by the EA on every tick.
• Test on a demo account first. Backtests do not include the news filter and do not reproduce your broker's execution.

Inputs overview

• General: Preset (keep Custom), Magic number base, Signal timeframe (H4), multi-symbol mode (off), load settings saved from the dashboard, start paused.
• Strategy selection: strategy mode (Hybrid), enable trend, breakout and mean reversion, minimum signal score, exit on opposite signal, deferred-entry window, allowed trade direction, pyramiding (off).
• Strategy A, B and C parameters: EMA, ADX and RSI periods and thresholds, pullback and extension limits, Donchian lookback, body and chase filters, retest mode, Bollinger and RSI levels.
• Market regime: ATR periods and the ADX and ATR-ratio thresholds.
• Position sizing: sizing mode (percent of equity, percent of balance or fixed lot), Risk per trade (2.0 %), hard cap per trade, maximum lot, maximum total open risk, maximum margin share, commission per lot, optional ATR-based and drawdown-based risk reduction.
• Protection limits: maximum positions, maximum trades per day, daily and weekly loss limits, maximum drawdown, hard equity stop, close on hard stop, consecutive-loss pause, spread limits, slippage, minimum reward to risk, cooldown.
• Sessions and news: optional trading sessions and Friday cut-off in broker server time, economic calendar filter (live only) with the minutes before and after an event and a high-impact-only switch.
• Stop loss and take profit: stop method (ATR, swing or fixed) and multipliers, minimum and maximum stop distance, take-profit method (reward to risk or ATR) and values.
• Trade management: break-even, trailing stop (ATR, fixed or structure), trailing take profit, partial close, time exit, momentum exit.
• Dashboard and notifications: show dashboard, theme, scale, position, pop-up, push and sound alerts.
• Logging: log level, CSV journal, dashboard snapshots.

Risk, limits, trailing and dashboard settings can also be changed from the dashboard settings panel while the EA runs. Indicator periods, timeframes, symbols and the magic number require the Inputs dialog.

What Meridian Gold Trend is not

It is not a martingale, grid or averaging system: the lot size never increases after a loss, nothing is added to a losing position, and there is no recovery mode. It does not use hidden or virtual stops; every position has a server-side stop loss and take profit from the moment it is filled. It does not trade on the forming bar, does not rely on a prediction model, and never bypasses its own risk limits. It is not a scalper: about 32 trades a year on H4 signals.

Version history

1.01: first Market release. Includes the closed-market guard: no request is sent while the symbol's trading session is closed or after the server has answered that the market is closed, so the EA behaves correctly during gold's daily break and on holidays.

Past performance, real or simulated, does not guarantee future results. Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of loss. Only trade with money you can afford to lose.