Choppiness Stillwater EA

Choppiness Index grid trading for traders who would rather wait out the sideways noise and step in once the market starts to travel. One promise: no grid starts while the chart is still churning; the first level waits until a choppy spell has visibly ended on a finished bar. Mechanism: a Choppiness Index trend release (CHOP above 61.8, then down through 50), the side taken from the last 10 closes, an EMA 200 trend filter and a Range Guard, then an ATR-spaced grid that banks small closures.

Put simply, Choppiness Stillwater EA is a Choppiness Index grid EA for MetaTrader 5: stillwater is the flat, choppy pool, and the EA leaves the bank only when the current starts to pull in one direction.

Why it costs less: the grid engine, the safety fixes and the panel are the very same code as our full grid EAs; the difference is one focused signal and nothing stacked on top.

The price gap in plain numbers: our full grid EAs sit around $213 to $249; this one is $67. The lighter part is the signal (one indicator, 14 signal inputs, hedge cycle off by default), not the money handling.

Tested on: EURUSD H1, $10,000, default inputs, 2025.01.01 to 2026.09.30: net +886.90, maximal equity drawdown 796.76 (7.96%), 233 trades, no stop-out, no margin refusal. Deepest basket: 0.99 lots open at once.

Try it free first: open Choppiness Stillwater EA in the MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester, visual mode on, default inputs, EURUSD H1. Every trend release it takes gets an arrow on the candle; on a live chart every release a guard refused shows as a grey dot.

The trade lifecycle in plain verbs. It measures how choppy the last 14 finished bars were, waits for a choppy spell (CHOP at or above 61.8), takes the bar where CHOP falls back below 50, reads the direction of the last 10 closes, checks the EMA 200 agrees, opens the first level, spaces the next ones by ATR, and banks groups of orders once their joint result clears the target.

Plain risk up front. This IS a grid. It adds to losing positions and uses no stop loss by default. Defaults: 0.01 first lot, additive steps of 0.01, ATR spacing with a 50 point floor, hedge cycle off, margin-level safety off. Limits stop new levels; they never force-close the book.

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WHAT THE CHOPPINESS INDEX MEASURES

The Choppiness Index (E.W. Dreiss) does not say up or down. It says how much of the bars' travel went nowhere. Over the last 14 bars it adds up every bar's true range and compares that sum with the distance from the highest high to the lowest low:

- a reading near 100 means lots of movement but no progress: a choppy, sideways pool,

- a reading near 0 means the bars marched in one direction,

- 61.8 and 38.2 are the classic Fibonacci-based lines for choppy and trending.

The formula is 100 x log10(sum of true range / (highest high - lowest low)) / log10(14). Everything is computed inside the EA from finished bars: no indicator file, no DLL, no web request.

Five facts before you start

- Entry: after CHOP has been at or above 61.8 within the last 10 bars, the event is the finished bar where it drops below 50. The side is the direction of the close over the last 10 bars. Accepted signals do not repaint.

- A second mode trades every drop below 38.2 instead, for a stricter "already trending" read.

- The default trend filter only lets a release through when the close sits on the matching side of the EMA 200.

- A Range Guard skips quiet boxes where 20 bars span less than 5 ATR.

- New this build: a Drift Guard that can refuse a release when the move over the last 10 bars is too small in ATR. It ships OFF, because in our tests it never improved profit per unit of drawdown. The full ladder of results is below.

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Start here (5 minutes)

1. Put it on EURUSD H1 and leave every input at its default.

2. Switch RunMode to Scan only for the first session. The panel shows each plan and sends nothing.

3. Watch the arrows and grey dots: they show which past releases the guards took or refused.

4. When the plans make sense to you, press ARMED on the panel.

5. Repeat the tester runs below on your own broker's data before real money; spread, swap and commission differ between brokers. Running more than one chart? Give each copy its own EAMagicNumber and HedgeMagicNumber.

Minimum deposit, from the deepest basket: on EURUSD H1 the deepest basket (0.99 lots) needed about $1,100 of margin at 1:100, next to a 797 drawdown, so start with at least $3,000 at default lots. On XAUUSD D1 the deepest basket was one 0.01 lot order, about $40 of margin at 1:100, so start with at least $500. Larger lots need proportionally more.

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Reproduce our numbers

Strategy Tester, default inputs, 1 minute OHLC, leverage 1:100, 2025.01.01 to 2026.09.30, one broker's demo data. Same settings and period, and you should land close to these:

- EURUSD H1, $10,000: net +886.90, maximal equity drawdown 796.76 (7.96%), 233 trades, deepest basket 0.99 lots. No stop-out, no margin refusal.

- EURUSD H1, $1,000,000: net +886.90, maximal equity drawdown 796.76 (0.08%), 233 trades. No stop-out, no margin refusal.

- XAUUSD D1, $10,000: net +27.33, maximal equity drawdown 9.50 (0.09%), 9 trades, deepest basket 1 order / 0.01 lots. No stop-out, no margin refusal.

- XAUUSD D1, $1,000,000: net +27.33, maximal equity drawdown 9.50 (0.00%), 9 trades. No stop-out, no margin refusal.

Treat these as one past stretch, not a forecast. The money drawdown is the same at both deposits because lots do not grow with the balance, so it weighs far more on a small account; deposits under $10,000 were not tested. Defaults were chosen once by judgement on this same period, which flatters them. Nine gold trades in 21 months say nothing about gold. Netting accounts were not verified.

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The Drift Guard ladder: pick your own risk point

The idea: a release with almost no drift behind it is close to a coin flip, so the Drift Guard asks for a minimum move, in ATR, over the momentum bars before the first level goes in. Same period and settings, EURUSD H1, $10,000, InpCHOPDriftMin at each level:

- 0 (off, the default): net +886.90, drawdown 796.76 (7.96%), 233 trades.

- 1 ATR: net +883.24, drawdown 796.76 (7.96%), 230 trades.

- 2 ATR: net +865.10, drawdown 796.76 (7.96%), 217 trades.

- 3 ATR: net +457.00, drawdown 434.43 (4.27%), 113 trades.

- 4 ATR: net +281.81, drawdown 434.43 (4.29%), 62 trades.

XAUUSD D1, $10,000: off +27.33, drawdown 9.50, 9 trades; at 2 ATR +25.09, drawdown 17.28, 6 trades.

Profit per unit of drawdown is highest with the guard off (about 1.11), so it ships off. If a smaller drawdown matters more to you than profit, 3 ATR nearly halved the worst drawdown in our test while cutting the profit roughly in half; check it on your own broker first.

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Why the Choppiness Index

A grid suffers most when its first level opens in a market that is about to reverse again and again. The Choppiness Index is built to tell churn from travel, so it is a natural gate for a trend grid: the EA stays idle in the pool and acts when the chop drains away. The honest costs: CHOP is direction-blind, so the side comes from the last closes and the EMA filter, which can be late; a release can fail and fall back into chop; and on quiet symbols the 61.8 level may not be reached for long periods. The Range Guard, the trend filter and the signal gap exist for exactly those cases.

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One cycle, step by step

1. Measure. Each finished bar gets a Choppiness Index over 14 bars.

2. Chop. In the default mode CHOP must have reached 61.8 or more within the last 10 bars.

3. Release. The event is the bar where CHOP falls below 50 (or, in mode 1, below 38.2).

4. Side. The close against the close 10 bars earlier decides BUY or SELL.

5. Drift Guard. Optional: that move must be at least InpCHOPDriftMin ATR (0, the default, switches it off).

6. Range Guard. The last 20 bars must span at least 5 ATR, so tight boxes are skipped.

7. Trend filter. By default the close must be on the matching side of the EMA 200. It can also fade that side, or be switched off.

8. Timing. Accepted signals are kept apart by a gap of bars, and a signal may wait a few bars if the level cannot be placed straight away.

9. Ladder. Levels follow ATR or fixed points, with a floor, a ceiling and an optional freeze. BUY and SELL grids can run together or alone.

10. Banking. Groups of oldest and newest orders close when their joint result, after swap and commission, clears the target. If the oldest order is too heavy, a slice of it is closed instead.

11. Safety checks. A closure that would reopen a level at once is blocked, every leg is confirmed in deal history, failed legs are retried, and a plan is dropped if the book changed before sending.

12. Hedge cycle, optional. Off by default and not exercised in our tests. When on, it holds a balanced pair on a chosen symbol and retires it in equal slices, paid by a small surcharge on closures the grid already makes.

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The panel

The panel sits on the left, keeping the right side and the price scale free. It shows symbol, magic number, a status pill, grid mode, lot step, spacing, banked result, the book, each side's closing plan and the order table. The CHOP PULSE row shows the length, the value of the last finished bar, whether the market reads CHOPPY, MID or TREND, whether CHOP is rising (UP) or falling (DN), and the bars since the last release. The DRIFT GUARD row shows the side the last closes point to, the mode, the drift in ATR with OPEN, HOLD or off, the Range Guard width in ATR with its state, and the EMA side. On the live chart every release of the last 150 bars is marked: a small arrow when accepted, a grey dot when a guard refused it. Buttons switch Armed / Scan only, Pause / Resume, chart marks and slicing. The Hedge Vault card docks under the main panel and stays hidden while the hedge is off. Nothing is drawn in a non-visual backtest.

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Limits you control

No setting closes the book for you; limits only stop new levels.

Every order passes a free margin check with a safety buffer before it is sent.

Caps on levels per grid, orders per side and lot per order keep the ladder finite. MinMarginLevelPercent and MaxAccountRiskPercent start at off; set them for your own account.

An optional margin-level timeframe safety moves the signal and spacing to a higher timeframe as margin falls. It is off by default and was not exercised in our tests.

Copies are kept apart by symbol and magic number.

Scan only shows every decision without sending a single order.

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Who this is for

Traders who distrust sideways markets, who want a grid that only starts after chop has cleared, who like many small closures, who want the core engine at an entry price, and who size lots to their balance.

Who this is NOT for

- Anyone who needs a stop loss on every order. This grid has none by design.

- Anyone expecting a fixed monthly return. The tested result above is modest, and it is the honest one.

- Small accounts running large lots unattended. A long one-way trend can keep the book open for weeks.

- Traders who want a trade on every candle. The chop gate keeps it idle on purpose, and on daily gold it can sit still for months.

- Traders who want a ready-made gold system. Gold was tested only on D1 with nine trades, which proves nothing either way.

- Traders who will not test first. If you skip the Strategy Tester on your own broker, this is not the right tool for you.

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Common questions

Does it repaint? Accepted signals, chart marks and both panel rows use finished bars only.

Is it the classic Choppiness Index? Yes: 100 x log10(sum of 14 true ranges / 14 bar high-low range) / log10(14). The release rule, the side rule, the trend filter and the guards are added by this EA.

Why 61.8 and 50? 61.8 is the classic choppy line; waiting for 38.2 on H1 fires late and rarely, so 50 marks the release. All three levels are inputs.

Release mode or trend mode? Release mode needs a choppy spell first. Trend mode trades any fall below 38.2 and was not backtested here.

Which markets were tested? EURUSD H1 and XAUUSD D1. Everything else is yours to test.

What should I change first? InpCHOPRelease and InpCHOPMomBars, then InpCHOPRangeMinATR, then InpCHOPDriftMin. One change at a time, and read drawdown and basket depth next to net result.

Netting accounts? A separate margin cap exists for them, but netting behaviour is unverified.

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All inputs

Grid levels

TradeMode - two grids, BUY and SELL, by default, or one direction only.

GridSpacePoints - level distance in fixed spacing mode (25).

GridSpaceMultiplier - above 1.0 widens deeper levels (1.0 = even).

MaxGridLevels - most levels in one grid (1000).

UpDirectionIsBuy - which side an up move arms.

EAMagicNumber - number on grid orders (9781550).

GridOrderComment - text on grid orders (CSTW).

OneOrderPerBar - at most one new level per bar.

Lots

InitialLotSize - volume of the first level (0.01).

LotSizingMode - additive by default, multiply as the alternative.

LotMultiplier - factor per level in multiply mode (1.25).

LotAddStep - step per level in additive mode (0.01; 0 uses the starting lot).

MaxOrderVolume - largest single order (1.0).

UseAutoLot - ties the starting lot to balance (off).

AutoLotBaseBalance - balance that matches the starting lot (1000).

AutoLotAllowDecrease - lets auto lot drop below the starting lot (off).

ATR spacing

GridSpacingMode - ATR by default, fixed points as the alternative.

ATRTimeframe - ATR timeframe (current chart).

ATRPeriod - ATR length (14).

ATRSpacingFactor - spacing as a multiple of ATR (1.0).

ATRBarShift - ATR bar; 1 is the last finished bar.

ATRMinSpacingPts - smallest spacing in points (50; 0 none).

ATRMaxSpacingPts - largest spacing in points (5000; 0 none).

ATRFreezeOnStart - keeps one spacing for the whole cycle (off).

Profit target

DesiredProfitPerClosure - base target in account currency (2.0).

ProfitMultiplier - final scale, 1.00 to 2.00.

ProfitTargetMode - scaled by default: bigger, deeper books aim higher.

ProfitVolumePower - how closing volume lifts the target (1.0; 0 off).

ProfitDepthBonus - extra target per additional open level (0.10).

ProfitMaxMultiple - scaled target ceiling in multiples of the base (50).

ProfitMaxReachFraction - keeps the target within this share of one grid step (0.50).

Fragment scanner

UseMultiLegScan - checks multi-order groups before the plain pair (on).

MaxOldestLegs - most old orders in one closure (3).

MaxNewestLegs - most new orders in one closure (6).

ScanPriority - ranking of qualifying groups; largest group first by default.

NeverBankLessThanPair - a group must also beat the pair target (on).

RequireCloseVolumeExceedsTarget - newest volume must exceed oldest volume (on).

MinCloseVolumeRatio - required ratio of those volumes (1.5).

Target slicing

EnableTargetSlicing - allows part-closing the oldest order (on).

FragProfitWeightPower - profit weight per closing lot (1.5).

FragMinSlicePercent - smallest slice, percent of the target order (20).

FragAllowMultiCloser - several new orders may fund one slice (on).

FragPreferFullClosure - a full closure wins when both are possible (on).

Reopen guard

ReopenGuard - blocks closures that would reopen a level at once (step based).

ReopenGuardCushion - safe distance as a share of one step (0.90).

Account protection

MinMarginLevelPercent - no new levels below this margin level (0 off).

MaxAccountRiskPercent - no new levels beyond this floating loss, percent of balance (0 off).

NetMaxMarginPercent - netting only: cap on net position margin, percent of equity (5.0).

MaxTotalOrders - absolute order cap per side (1000).

Execution and checks

RunMode - Armed or Scan only.

CloseSequence - order in which legs are sent; oldest first by default.

MaxSlippagePoints - allowed slippage (30).

MaxSpreadPoints - no trading above this spread (7500).

MinSecondsBetweenClosures - pause between closures per side (5).

CloseAttemptsPerLeg - attempts before the retry queue (3).

VerifyTimeoutSeconds - how long a stuck leg is followed (90).

DeferWhenMarketClosed - waits for the session instead of halting (on).

MarketClosedRetrySeconds - retry spacing while orders are refused (30).

AutoResumeAfterSeconds - a halt clears itself after this many seconds (300; 0 waits for you).

NoPartialRetryMinutes - partial closes tried again this many minutes after a broker refusal (15; 0 never).

AbortIfBookChanged - drops a plan if a leg changed (on).

UseFullCommission - counts commission on both sides (on).

CommissionPerLot - fallback figure (0 reads history).

CloseOrderComment - text on closing deals.

Hedge cycle

EnableHedgeCycle - main switch (off).

HedgeSymbols - comma list; repeat a symbol for more turns (XAGUSD).

HedgeSymbolRotation - how the next symbol is picked (per cycle).

HedgeMaxSymbolsInTester - rotation cap in the tester only (2; 0 none).

HedgeCycleLots - lots on each side of the pair (0.01).

HedgeSliceLots - lots retired per side each slice (0.01).

HedgeFragmentBonus - bonus over the slice cost (100).

HedgeBonusIsPercent - bonus is a percent; false means money (on).

HedgeMaxSurcharge - money cap per closure (0 none).

HedgeMaxSurchargePercent - largest rise of any closure target, percent (50).

HedgeMagicNumber - number on hedge legs, must differ from the grid (9781551).

HedgeReopenOnFinish - opens a new cycle when one ends (on).

HedgeStartRequiresTrade - first cycle waits for a grid order (on).

HedgeIntegritySeconds - leg balance check interval (5).

HedgeAutoRepair - repairs a lone leg automatically (on).

HedgeNakedAction - what to do with a lone leg; re-hedge by default.

HedgeMaxSpreadPoints - hedge spread limit (0 off).

HedgeSlippagePoints - hedge slippage allowance (30).

HedgeAttemptsPerLeg - attempts per hedge leg (3).

HedgeVerifyTimeout - follow time for a stuck hedge leg (90).

HedgeCommissionPerLot - fallback hedge commission (0 reads history).

HedgeOrderComment - text on hedge deals.

Weekly cash day

WeeklyCashDay - pauses new cycles and slices around withdrawals (off).

CashDayOfWeek - 0 Sunday, 1 Monday and so on (1).

CashCutoffHour - server hour after which no new slice fires (21).

Panel and chart

ShowPanel - panel on or off.

PanelX and PanelY - distance from the chart edge (12, 15).

PanelFontSize - base text size (9).

ShowArabic - second language line (on).

ShowChartMarks - plans and levels drawn on the chart (on).

MaxTableRows - order rows per grid (13).

PanelCorner - corner the panel is anchored to.

Entry trigger

EntryTriggerMode - the Choppiness Index strategy by default.

SignalBarShift - 1 is the last finished bar.

SignalBarsDelay - bars between accepted signals (30; 0 every).

SignalValidBars - bars a signal stays usable (3).

SignalAllowBuy and SignalAllowSell - switch each side.

SignalReverse - turns the direction around (off).

Choppiness Index

InpCHOPPeriod - bars in the Choppiness Index (14).

InpCHOPHigh - choppy level CHOP must have reached first (61.8).

InpCHOPRelease - release level; CHOP falling below it after a choppy spell is the event in mode 0 (50).

InpCHOPLow - trend level; CHOP falling below it is the event in mode 1 (38.2).

InpCHOPLookback - bars back in which CHOP must have reached the choppy level (10).

InpCHOPMomBars - bars over which the close sets the side, up = BUY, down = SELL (10).

InpCHOPMode - 0 trend release, 1 fall below the trend level (0).

InpCHOPDriftMin - Drift Guard: least move in ATR over the momentum bars (0 = off, the default; 1 to 4 tested, see above).

InpCHOPRangeMinATR - Range Guard: least window width in ATR (5; 0 off).

InpCHOPRangeBars - Range Guard: window length in bars (20).

InpCHOPATRPeriod - ATR length for the Range Guard and the Drift Guard (14).

InpCHOPTrendFilter - 1 with the EMA side, 2 against it, 0 off (1).

InpCHOPTrendMAPeriod - trend EMA length (200).

InpShowSignalArrows - arrow where a cycle armed (on).

InpShowCHOPOnChart - past releases on the live chart, arrow or grey dot (on).

Debug

DebugMode - extra journal detail (off).

Margin timeframe safety

UseMarginTFSafety - main switch (off).

Level1MarginPct and Level1TF - at 6000 percent the work moves to M15.

Level2MarginPct and Level2TF - at 5000 percent the work moves to H1.

MarginTFHysteresisPct - recovery needed before stepping back (500).

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Risk, plainly

Grid trading is risky. It adds to losing positions, uses no stop loss, and a long trend can keep the book open for a long time or, with lots too large for the balance, end in a stop-out and a heavy loss. The Choppiness Index is built from past bars and cannot see the next one. No profit is promised. Choose lots that survive a bad run, test on your own broker, and only risk money you can afford to lose. No DLLs or extra files are needed.

If you have run it, an honest review of how it behaved for you, good or bad, helps the next trader decide.