PearlJam

LIVE SIGNAL: https://www.mql5.com/en/signals/2393666
(IC Markets live account, fixed 0.01 lot on all three pairs)

Launch price: 99 USD. Next price: 149 USD after the first 10 copies.

If you value a plainly described, rules-based system over a perfect straight-line backtest, PearlJam may be for you.

PearlJam is an Expert Advisor for MetaTrader 5 that trades USDJPY, EURJPY and GBPJPY from a single chart.

If you are looking for an EA that doubles an account in a month, this is not it. PearlJam is designed for long-term, rules-based trading, with small positions, a stop loss on every trade, and no attempt to recover a loss by trading bigger. It has losing days and losing weeks. That is normal for this kind of system.

What it trades

The JPY crosses have a daily rhythm that repeats around the Tokyo, London and New York sessions. PearlJam trades that rhythm with 18 rule-based trade setups. Every position is opened with a stop loss. Under normal market and broker conditions each position is closed within roughly one trading day by its own rule, and the strategy is designed not to carry positions over the weekend.

They are built on old, well-known behaviour of these pairs, not on anything new. There is no AI, no neural network and no secret indicator. The rules were fixed from a 10-year test and have very few parameters, which is what keeps them from being fitted to the past.

Trading frequency: in the 2016-2026 backtest the EA opened about 150 positions per month on average across the three pairs (about 67 on USDJPY, 31 on EURJPY and 52 on GBPJPY).

No grid. No martingale. The order size is never increased after a loss.

A word of warning

A lot of trading robots are sold with words like "AI", "neural network", "machine learning" or "quantum". Treat those words as a reason to look closer, not as a feature. There is no holy grail in retail trading, and a straight-line backtest is not evidence of one.

PearlJam makes no such claim. It is built on behaviour of the JPY pairs that has been known for decades, applied in a systematic, rule-based way, and tested on ten years of real tick data. The edge is small and it shows up slowly.

Who it is for

• Traders who want a JPY component in a portfolio of EAs, with behaviour that is easy to understand and easy to check against the chart.
• Traders who want to compound slowly: start at 0.01 and raise the lot as the account grows, or use the risk-percent mode and let it scale by itself.
• Traders who are comfortable leaving a VPS running and looking at the account once a week.

Who it is not for

• Anyone who needs a profit this month. The edge is small per trade and shows up over months and years.
• Anyone who wants to tune parameters. There is nothing to tune; the methods are fixed on purpose.
• Anyone who wants to run it on gold, indices or crypto. It is built for the three JPY pairs only.
• Anyone who cannot accept a few losing weeks in a row without turning it off. Turning it off after a drawdown is the most common way to lose with a system like this.

How you can run it

• Fixed lot (mode 0). The simplest way. Pick a lot you can hold through a bad month and leave it. This is how the author runs it on a small live account.
• Risk per trade (mode 3, default). Each position risks about 1% of the balance at its stop loss. The lot grows and shrinks with the account. On a small account the broker's minimum lot may be larger than 1%; in that case use mode 0.
• Compounding by coefficients (mode 2). For larger accounts, with the built-in weighting between methods.
• As part of a portfolio. PearlJam trades the JPY session rhythm, which may give different exposure from gold or index strategies.

What to expect

• Many small trades. Most of the result comes from the sum of many ordinary trades, not from a few big ones.
• Drawdowns. In the 10-year backtest the longest stretch without a new balance high lasted about seven months, in 2019. If you cannot sit through half a year without new highs, this EA is not for you.
• Backtest results do not guarantee future results. Test the EA on a demo account with your broker before using it on a live account, and start with the smallest lot.

How to use

• Attach the EA to one USDJPY, EURJPY or GBPJPY chart. Any timeframe works; the EA reads the timeframes it needs by itself. It trades all three pairs from that chart.
• Symbol names with a prefix or suffix (for example USDJPY.r or USDJPY-TDSr) are detected from the chart symbol.
• Keep USDJPY, EURJPY and GBPJPY in Market Watch. A pair that is not found is skipped, and the start-up line in the Experts tab shows which pairs are active.
• On a chart of any other symbol the EA trades that symbol only, with a reduced set of methods. This mode exists for compatibility; the EA is designed for the three JPY pairs.

Requirements

• MetaTrader 5, hedging account. The EA does not start on a netting account.
• A VPS or an always-on machine is recommended.
• A raw-spread (ECN) account is recommended.
• Broker server time: detected automatically (Server time = Auto, the default), including daylight saving changes. If you prefer to set it yourself, choose Manual and enter the winter and summer GMT offsets and the DST rule (US, EU or none).

Lot size

Four lot modes (input "Lot mode"):

• 0: Base lot. Every position uses "Base lot" x Multiplier. Default base lot 0.01.
• 1: Base lot x coefficients. Each method has a built-in coefficient between 0.8 and 1.35, so the methods do not all trade the same size. Because the result is rounded to the broker's lot step, the coefficients only take effect with a base lot of about 0.1 or more.
• 2: Base lot x coefficients x balance ratio. Same as mode 1, multiplied by current balance divided by "Base balance" (0 = the balance at start-up). This is a compounding mode.
• 3 (default): Risk % of balance. The lot is calculated so that the stop loss of the position equals "Risk % per trade" of the balance (default 1%), multiplied by the method coefficient, by Multiplier and, for some setups, by a built-in stage factor that reduces the risk. "Base balance" = 0 uses the current balance; a positive value fixes the balance used for the calculation.

In every mode the result is rounded down to the broker's lot step and is never below the broker's minimum lot. The risk percentage is a target, not a cap: on a very small account the minimum lot can exceed the target.

Inputs

• Symbols (comma separated; default USDJPY,EURJPY,GBPJPY)
• Lot mode (3), Base lot (0.01), Risk % per trade (1.0), Multiplier (1.0), Base balance (0)
• Magic base (27182). All magic numbers of this EA are derived from it. Change it if another EA on the same account uses the same number.
• Slippage in points (30)
• Server time: Auto (default) or Manual. Auto detects the broker's GMT offset from the weekly market open.
• Winter GMT offset (2), Summer GMT offset (3), DST rule (US). Used only when Server time = Manual.

That is all. There are no settings to optimize and no set files to download.