WickGap Retest

WickGap Retest is a price-action Expert Advisor for XAUUSD (gold) on the M15 timeframe. It waits for one specific, rules-based setup and protects every trade with a hard stop-loss.

One trade at a time. No grid, no martingale, no averaging down.

How it trades

1. Rejection wick at a zone. A candle prints a strong wick into an H1 support/resistance level or a fresh supply/demand zone, then closes back out of it.
2. Displacement Fair Value Gap. Price leaves a 3-candle imbalance (FVG) in the same direction. The candle that creates it must have a strong body (at least 0.8 x ATR).
3. Retest and reclaim. Price comes back into the gap and a candle closes back outside it. The EA enters on the next bar with the stop beyond the rejection wick.

The setup is cancelled if price takes out the wick, closes through the gap, or takes too long.

Trade and risk management

• Risk per trade as % of balance, or a fixed lot.
• Partial close of 50% at 1R and stop to break-even.
• Runner trails 2 x ATR behind price, with no fixed target. ATR, R-distance and swing-structure trailing modes are available, and a fixed take profit (for example 1:2) is one input away.
• Max daily loss (% of the day's starting balance). The EA stops for the day, and never opens a trade whose stop would breach the limit.
• News filter: no new trades 30 minutes before and after high-impact USD news, and any open trade is closed 5 minutes before the release.
• Max spread and trading-hours filters.
• Small-account mode: when the risk % works out below the minimum lot, the EA uses the minimum lot only if it risks at most a cap you set (default 10% of balance).
• On-chart dashboard: balance, equity, daily P/L, win rate, signal state, spread, news countdown and an EA ON/OFF button.

Backtest: Vantage, XAUUSD M15, real ticks (100%), Jan 2022 to Nov 2026, $10,000

• 1% risk: +$2,638 (+26.4%), profit factor 1.28, max equity drawdown 8.9%
• 2% risk: +$6,079 (+60.8%), profit factor 1.27, max equity drawdown 17.4%
• 3% risk: +$9,743 (+97.4%), profit factor 1.25, max equity drawdown 25.2%
• 233 trades, 57.5% winners. Every calendar year was positive. At 2% risk: 2022 +14.3%, 2023 +11.4%, 2024 +5.2%, 2025 +17.2%, 2026 (to 13 Nov) +2.4%.
• There are losing months: 36 to 37 of 58 months were positive. Higher risk raises the drawdown as much as the profit.

Recommendations

• Symbol and timeframe: XAUUSD, M15. The signal timeframe is an input, so you can attach the EA to any chart timeframe.
• Account: any (hedging or netting), low spread. About $1,000 or more for 1% risk, or a cent account for small balances.
• Start with 1% risk and run it on a demo account first.
• Designed and tested for gold. On other symbols it runs with a warning but has not been optimised there.
• Strategy Tester: MT5 calendar functions do not work in the tester, so the news filter is inactive in backtests unless you provide a news CSV (input "Strategy Tester news file", in the Common\Files folder).

Main inputs

• General: signal timeframe (M15/M5), magic number, trade direction
• Zones: S/R and/or supply/demand, zone timeframe (H1), lookback and sensitivity
• Setup: wick size, FVG size, displacement body (ATR), confirmation (reclaim/colour), setup expiry
• Risk: lot mode, risk %, fixed lot, take profit (0 = trailing only), stop buffer, max stop size
• Exits: partial close %, break-even trigger and lock, trailing mode/start/distance, time exit
• Limits: max daily loss %, max spread, max trades per day, small-account cap
• News: filter on/off, minutes before/after, close before news, currencies
• Time filter: trading hours (server time)
• Dashboard: position and chart drawings

Trading involves risk. Backtest results do not guarantee future results.