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MT5 Expert Advisor Development Brief — Forex
Project objective
I am looking for an experienced MQL5 developer to build a bespoke, fully automated Expert Advisor for MetaTrader 5.
The EA will be used on both proprietary trading firm (prop-firm) accounts and my own live trading account.
My priorities, in order, are:
1. Low drawdown and robust risk management.
2. Consistent, repeatable profitability.
3. Reliable performance in live trading, not just historical backtests.
4. Compatibility with prop-firm trading rules.
5. Full ownership of the EA source code and intellectual property.
Budget: £1,000–£5,000, depending on the developer's experience, strategy quality and scope.
1. Instruments and strategy
- Initial instruments: XAUUSD. EURUSD and GBPUSD.
- Platform: MetaTrader 5, written in native MQL5.
- Strategy: a rules-based trend/pullback or breakout strategy, with the proposed logic explained before development.
- The strategy must have a demonstrable rationale and should not rely on excessive optimisation of historical data.
- Intraday trading is acceptable. Swing trading can also be considered if separately tested and compatible with prop-firm rules.
- Each trade must have a defined stop-loss and take-profit or clearly specified exit logic.
2. Strict exclusions
The EA must NOT use:
- Martingale position sizing.
- Grid trading.
- Averaging down or recovery trading.
- Increasing risk to recover previous losses.
- Unbounded position accumulation.
- Hidden or discretionary overrides that bypass risk controls.
Every trade must have a stop-loss submitted to the broker as soon as practicable, subject to broker execution rules.
3. Risk management
Initial requirements:
- Risk approximately 0.5% of account equity per trade, configurable.
- Maximum two open position per currency pair.
- Configurable daily loss limit, after which new entries are disabled.
- Configurable maximum total open risk and maximum number of simultaneous positions.
- Equity-based risk calculation and correct lot-size calculation for each symbol.
- Hard controls for consecutive losses and drawdown.
- All risk limits must continue to work after a terminal or VPS restart.
- Risk controls must be compatible with the relevant prop firm's daily-loss, overall-drawdown and trading restrictions.
Risk limits should be configurable, but the EA must never silently increase risk to improve returns.
4. Execution and trading filters
Include configurable:
- Maximum spread filter.
- Trading-session filter.
- High-impact news filter, where a reliable calendar source is available.
- Slippage/deviation controls.
- Maximum open positions and exposure limits.
- Protection against duplicate entries and repeated order submissions.
- Handling of rejected orders, disconnections, requotes and broker errors.
- Broker-specific checks for volume limits, stop distances and symbol specifications.
The EA should log every entry decision, exit, rejected order and risk-control event.
5. Testing requirements
I do not want a strategy that only looks profitable in the Strategy Tester.
The developer must provide:
1. Backtests using MT5 Every tick based on real ticks, where reliable data is available.
2. Realistic spreads, commissions, swaps and execution assumptions.
3. Testing over multiple market conditions, including trending, ranging and volatile periods.
4. Separate in-sample and untouched out-of-sample results.
5. Forward testing on demo before live deployment.
6. A comparison of tester and forward-test trade behaviour.
7. Results showing balance and equity curves, maximum equity drawdown, trade count, profit factor, average trade, expected payoff and recovery factor.
8. Evidence that the results are not dependent on a small number of exceptional trades or a narrow date range.
9. The complete settings file and instructions required to reproduce the tests.
Please disclose any limitations in the historical data and any differences between the test environment and intended live broker.
6. Performance objectives
The priority is sustainable profitability with low drawdown, rather than maximising headline returns.
My preferred historical equity drawdown is below 10%, although I understand that backtest results cannot guarantee this in live trading.
I would prefer a strategy with modest, repeatable returns and controlled losses over one with exceptional backtested returns and a fragile risk profile.
No return or drawdown figure should be represented as guaranteed.
7. Deliverables and ownership
The successful developer must provide:
- Complete, readable ".mq5" source code.
- Compiled ".ex5" file.
- All required indicators, libraries and dependencies.
- Preset ".set" files and recommended initial settings.
- Backtest reports and supporting data.
- Installation and configuration instructions.
- Documentation of the strategy logic and risk controls.
- A handover session and a defined bug-fixing period.
I require full ownership of the bespoke code and associated intellectual property, with the right to modify it, use it on my own accounts, and appoint another developer to maintain it.
Any third-party code or paid dependencies must be disclosed before development.
8. Developer application
Please include the following in your proposal:
1. Examples of MT5 EAs you have developed that are currently trading live.
2. Independently verifiable live performance, preferably covering at least 12 months.
3. Evidence of your experience developing non-martingale, non-grid strategies.
4. How you prevent overfitting and validate backtest-to-live performance.
5. Your proposed strategy, development milestones, delivery timeline and fixed-price quotation.
6. Confirmation that I will receive full source code and ownership rights.
7. Your proposed forward-testing and acceptance process.
I am looking for a developer who can explain why a strategy should have an edge and demonstrate that it survives realistic testing—not simply someone who can produce an attractive historical equity curve.
Please do not submit a generic EA or a strategy based solely on optimised backtest results.