Prop Guardian Risk Manager MT4

Prop Guardian Risk Manager MT4 – Drawdown, Risk & Hedge Protection for Prop Firm and Managed Accounts

Prop Guardian Risk Manager is a professional risk-control utility for MetaTrader 4, designed for prop firm traders, money managers and anyone who wants strict account-level risk protection. It does not generate trading signals, strategy entries or trading decisions. Instead, it runs in the background, monitors your account risk and can automatically block new exposure, close managed trades or activate protective hedging when your configured limits are reached.

Use it as a safety layer on top of your manual trading or existing Expert Advisors to follow prop firm rules more consistently, protect account capital and reduce the chance of avoidable risk-limit violations. The utility works with the information available in your MT4 terminal, including equity, balance, open trades, pending orders and Stop Loss levels, and acts strictly according to the rules you configure.

In addition to daily and overall drawdown protection, Prop Guardian includes risk-per-trade and total-open-risk controls, projected loss headroom protection, an optional spread guard, trading-session controls, evaluation tracking, persistent lock recovery and an optional Hedge Exposure mode that can neutralize managed directional exposure instead of closing the original trades when the Overall Loss limit is reached.

If you need the MetaTrader 5 version, it is available separately in the Market: Prop Guardian Risk Manager MT5.

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Key Capabilities

• Daily loss protection: Monitors daily drawdown based on equity with two calculation modes: from prop-day start equity or from the highest equity reached during the current prop day.
• Overall loss protection: Tracks account drawdown from an initial balance, detected automatically on first run or entered manually, and activates an overall protection lock when your configured limit is reached.
• Close or Hedge protection: Choose how the EA responds to an Overall Loss breach. The default Close Positions mode preserves the traditional close-and-lock behaviour, while optional Hedge Exposure mode can open opposite protective trades to neutralize managed directional exposure without closing the original strategy trades.
• Automatic hedge monitoring: In Hedge Exposure mode, protective volume is calculated separately for each managed symbol and continuously reconciled as the original exposure changes.
• Risk per trade and total open risk: Calculates the risk of open trades from their Stop Loss and lot size, then tracks combined open risk as a percentage of equity.
• Projected loss headroom guard: Estimates worst-case daily and overall loss using current loss plus open SL-based risk, then blocks additional exposure when there is not enough safe room left under your configured limits.
• Spread guard: Optionally checks the spread when a new market trade appears and can immediately close that trade if the spread exceeds your threshold.
• Automatic locks and trade control: Can block new trades and, depending on your selected protection mode and settings, close live trades, remove pending orders or maintain protective hedge exposure after a rule is breached.
• Prop timezone, sessions and manual override: Aligns the internal prop day with your firm’s timezone, can restrict trading to selected hours and can provide controlled manual unlock actions when enabled.
• On-chart dashboard: Shows daily and overall drawdown, open risk, equity, projected-loss headroom, session status, evaluation progress and Hedge Protection status in a compact dashboard.
• Persistent protection and recovery: Lock, override and Hedge Protection state are stored and reconstructed after terminal restarts or reconnects so the EA can resume protection from the actual account state.
• Notifications and integration: Sends terminal, push and email notifications for warnings, locks and protection failures, and publishes key state values through account-specific MetaTrader Global Variables.

Daily and Overall Loss Protection

The daily loss module focuses on the maximum daily drawdown rule. You define a maximum allowed daily loss in percent, based on equity, and a warning level such as 60% of the daily limit. Prop Guardian tracks equity against either the equity at the start of the prop day or the highest equity reached during that day, depending on the calculation mode you select. When the warning level is reached, the utility can alert you; when the daily loss limit is hit, it can lock trading until the end of that prop day and optionally close managed exposure.

The overall loss module tracks drawdown across the lifetime of the account. You define an overall loss limit as a percentage of an Initial Balance. That balance can be detected automatically on first run or entered manually when your prop firm, PAMM or managed account uses a specific capital reference.

When the Overall Loss limit is reached, the account enters an Overall protection lock. You can choose between two protection actions: Close Positions, which is the default and preserves the traditional behaviour, or Hedge Exposure, which attempts to neutralize the managed directional exposure while leaving the original strategy trades intact.

Hedge Exposure Protection

Hedge Exposure mode is designed for situations where you want to stop additional directional drawdown without immediately closing the original trading basket. When the Overall Loss limit is reached, Prop Guardian calculates the net managed exposure separately for each symbol and opens the required opposite protective trade where the broker allows it.

For example, if the managed EURUSD exposure is net BUY 2.50 lots, the utility can open approximately SELL 2.50 lots of protective exposure. If the original basket changes later, Prop Guardian continues monitoring the account and adjusts the protection when necessary.

While Hedge Protection is active, managed pending orders are removed so they cannot later recreate uncontrolled exposure. If AutoBlockNewTrades is enabled, new managed market trades are also closed. If it is disabled, new market exposure may remain open and is incorporated into the protective hedge calculation instead.

Protective trades created by Prop Guardian are tracked separately from the original strategy trades. The utility does not modify the original trades’ Stop Loss, Take Profit, Magic Number or comments in order to maintain the hedge.

If manual overall unlocking is enabled, the panel can display a dedicated Release hedge & unlock action. This closes only confirmed Prop Guardian protective hedge trades and releases the Overall protection lifecycle. Original strategy trades are not automatically closed as part of the hedge release.

Important: Hedge Exposure requires a broker/account that allows opposite BUY and SELL exposure on the same symbol. If the broker cannot create the required hedge, Prop Guardian keeps the protection state locked and reports the failure instead of silently switching to a destructive close action.

Hedging reduces directional market exposure but does not freeze account equity. Spread, commission, swap, slippage and other broker costs can still affect the account.

Risk per Trade, Total Open Risk and Risk Locks

Beyond daily and overall loss, Prop Guardian can enforce limits on risk per trade and total open risk. For each open trade with a valid Stop Loss, it calculates the potential loss at the Stop Loss and converts that amount into a percentage of current equity. It also sums all monitored SL-based risk into a total open risk percentage.

If these limits are exceeded, the utility can warn you, create a daily-style risk lock and optionally close managed exposure. This helps control risk when several strategies, EAs or manual trades are active at the same time.

Projected Loss Guard and Spread Guard

The projected loss guard provides a proactive layer before a hard drawdown limit is reached. It combines currently used loss with current open SL-based risk to estimate a projected worst-case daily and overall loss. You can also configure a safety buffer below the hard drawdown limit. When the projected figure reaches that safe threshold, new exposure can be blocked before the account reaches the actual drawdown line.

The spread guard is separate from the projected guard. When enabled, it checks the spread when a new market trade is detected. If the spread is above your configured threshold, the newly opened trade can be closed immediately. This can help avoid entries during abnormal spread spikes, news conditions or periods of low liquidity.

Evaluation Tracker

The evaluation tracker can display challenge progress directly on the dashboard. You can define a profit target percentage, minimum trading days, minimum profitable days and the threshold that counts as a profitable day. The tracker summarizes closed profit relative to Initial Balance together with trading-day and profitable-day statistics. This feature is informational only and does not replace the official dashboard or rule engine of your prop firm.

Prop Timezone, Sessions and Lock Behaviour

Many prop firms define their trading day according to a specific timezone. Prop Guardian allows you to align its internal prop day with your firm’s schedule by setting a GMT offset and custom day start/end hours. Daily statistics and resets then follow that definition rather than your computer’s local time.

You can also configure an allowed trading session and choose whether trades outside that session should be blocked. Daily and risk-style locks remain active until their appropriate reset condition. Overall protection remains active until its configured lifecycle allows it to be released. Releasing an Overall Hedge does not remove an unrelated Daily or Risk lock.

Protection state is stored in account-specific MetaTrader Global Variables and reconstructed after terminal restarts. Hedge Protection also uses the current live order pool during recovery so the utility does not rely only on previously stored intentions.

On-Chart Panel

The utility creates a compact dashboard on the attached chart so you can see the current risk situation at a glance. The panel includes:

• State badge: normal, warning, headroom guard, session block, daily lock, overall lock, risk lock or override.
• Risk snapshot cards: daily drawdown, overall drawdown, total open risk and current equity.
• Overview lines: daily room, overall room, projected loss, risk room, spread/session status, equity/balance and remaining prop-day time.
• Hedge Protection status: shows states such as pending, hedge complete, partially protected, unsupported or hedge failure when Hedge Exposure mode is active.
• Evaluation summary: optional progress information for profit target, trading days and profitable days.
• Manual actions: optional daily/overall unlock controls and, when appropriate, a dedicated Release hedge & unlock action.

Symbol Filter Scope

The symbol filter limits which instruments are actively managed for trade blocking, forced closing/deleting, open-risk calculations, evaluation tracking and Hedge Exposure calculations. Daily and overall drawdown remain account-level because they are based on total account equity. This distinction is important when the account also trades symbols outside the configured management scope.

Basic Setup

1. Attach Prop Guardian Risk Manager to a chart in the account you want to protect.
2. Configure the daily and overall loss limits according to your prop firm, managed-account mandate or personal risk limits.
3. Set the prop timezone and prop-day start/end hours so daily protection follows the correct trading-day definition.
4. Choose the Overall Protection Action: keep the default Close Positions behaviour or select Hedge Exposure if you want the EA to neutralize managed directional exposure instead of closing the original basket.
5. Configure CloseAllOnDailyHit, CloseAllOnOverallHit and AutoBlockNewTrades according to the level of automatic protection you want.
6. If needed, enable risk-per-trade and total-open-risk limits and choose whether a risk breach should create a lock.
7. Optionally enable the projected loss guard and define a safety buffer below your hard limits.
8. Optionally enable the spread guard and define the maximum spread accepted for newly opened market trades.
9. If required, enable trading-session control and configure the allowed trading hours.
10. Optionally use the symbol filter and evaluation tracker.
11. Keep the utility running while you trade manually or through your own EAs so it can continuously monitor account state.

If you use Hedge Exposure, validate the behaviour on a demo account first and confirm that your broker allows opposite positions. For Hedge Protection, do not run separate independent MT4 terminal/VPS processes on the same trading account at the same time. Multiple Prop Guardian charts inside the same terminal are coordinated automatically, but independent terminal processes cannot share the same protection authority.

Strategy Tester and Limitations in MT4

Prop Guardian is a risk-management utility, not a strategy EA. The MT4 Strategy Tester can help verify panel rendering, state transitions and some basic protection behaviour, but real operation depends on live orders, pending orders, actual equity fluctuations, Stop Loss placement, spread, broker execution and order lifecycle behaviour.

Hedge Protection in particular should be validated on a demo account connected to the broker environment you intend to use. Always test your complete configuration before applying it to a funded, PAMM or other real-money account.

User Guide and Demo Version

A detailed step-by-step user guide with configuration examples and frequently asked questions, together with information about demo-only testing, is available in the following MQL5 blog post:

Prop Guardian Risk Manager – Full User Guide & Demo Version

Important Notes and Risk Disclaimer

• Prop Guardian Risk Manager is a risk-management utility and does not implement a trading strategy or generate strategy entries. The optional Hedge Exposure mode may open opposite protective trades solely to reduce managed directional exposure after an Overall Loss breach.
• Prop Guardian cannot guarantee profits, successful prop-firm evaluations or prevention of every possible financial loss.
• All calculations use information available in the MT4 terminal. Your broker or prop firm may calculate drawdown, violations, profitable days or other metrics differently.
• Risk-per-trade, total-open-risk and projected-loss calculations depend on valid Stop Loss placement. Trades without a Stop Loss do not contribute to those SL-based metrics, although account-level daily and overall drawdown monitoring continues to work.
• Hedge Exposure requires broker support for opposite positions. A hedge reduces directional exposure but cannot eliminate spread, commission, swap, slippage or other trading costs.
• Do not operate Hedge Protection simultaneously from separate independent MT4 terminal/VPS processes connected to the same trading account.
• The evaluation tracker is a convenience feature for your own monitoring and is not an official prop-firm pass/fail engine.
• You are responsible for configuring the utility according to the actual rules of your broker, prop firm or managed account. The author cannot be held responsible for financial losses, rule violations or account terminations resulting from incorrect settings, incompatible broker conditions or misuse of the product.