Vintage Gold Grid v1.03 – MT5 XAUUSD H1 Trend-Following Grid

What it does

Vintage Gold Grid is a trend-following averaging grid for MetaTrader 5, built and tested on XAUUSD (gold). It opens a basket in the direction of the H4 trend, adds positions at fixed distances when price moves against the basket, and closes the whole basket once its profit reaches a money target.

Before it opens or grows a basket, a trend-maturity filter compares the current H4 trend's age and extension with up to 1,500 bars of past trend runs. Late in an exhausted trend it stops opening new baskets, and it stops adding to the side that trades with an extreme trend.

How it works

• Direction: trades with the H4 trend (last closed bar against a 50-period moving average), or buy-only / sell-only.
• Grid: one basket at a time. The next level opens after a fixed adverse move (100 pips by default) from the last level. Lot progression per level is selectable from ×1.0 to ×3.0 (×1.5 by default).
• Take profit: the whole basket closes, newest position first, when its profit including swap reaches the money target.
• Trend-maturity filter: ranks the trend's age and its move (in ATR units) against past trends and classifies it as Young, Mature, Exhausted or Extreme, with a continuation probability. New baskets are blocked in exhausted phases, and grid adds in the trend direction pause in the Extreme phase.
• Trend-reversal handling: when the trend turns against an open side you choose what happens: ignore it, hold (freeze the grid), rescue (exit near break-even or after a time limit), close at once, or continue. An optional panic exit is tied to the remaining daily loss room.
• Grid drawdown budget (optional): a new level opens only if the basket's projected loss a set number of steps further away fits inside a chosen share of the day's remaining loss room.
• Account protection (optional): daily loss limit, total loss limit, daily or total profit target, close-all on stop (retried until the market opens), and day-start balance, equity or auto mode. State is kept across terminal restarts.
• Spike guard: if the next level is reached within 5 seconds of the previous one, adds pause for 30 seconds.
• Filters and options: maximum spread, trading hours (overnight windows supported), ATR volatility filter, optional broker-side backstop stop loss, maximum grid levels, and an optional hedge mode.
• Dashboard: balance, equity, today's P/L, trend phase, basket P/L, plus manual BUY, SELL, CLOSE BUY, CLOSE SELL and CLOSE ALL buttons.
• Works on standard and cent accounts. Pip size is detected automatically (including crypto symbols), and each symbol gets its own magic number.

Requirements

• MetaTrader 5 with a hedging account (netting accounts are not supported).
• Symbol: XAUUSD. Attach on any chart timeframe (H1 recommended).
• Deposit: the backtests used $14,688 per 0.02 lot on a standard account where XAUUSD is 100 oz per lot. Treat that as the minimum, not a safe level (see Risks). On cent accounts check the contract size: where XAUUSD is 1 oz per lot, the same exposure is 0.02 lot per about 15,000 USC.
• Leverage 1:500 or higher, low-spread broker, and a VPS for 24/5 operation.

Backtest results

MT5 Strategy Tester, XAUUSD, RoboForex-Pro data, 1-minute OHLC modelling (real ticks where noted), 5 Jan – 7 Oct 2026. Drawdown is the maximum relative equity drawdown.

Default 0.02 lot, ×1.5, 100-pip step, TP 50, EMA trend, no DD budget $14,688 +$183,155 2.29 24.7% 5,693 Default – real ticks, 20 Aug – 7 Oct 2026 as Default $14,688 +$11,817 1.63 70.8% 597 Low-risk 0.02 lot, ×1.5, 100-pip step, TP 50, DD budget 35%, close on reversal $14,688 +$43,746 1.69 19.7% 3,061 Wide-step 0.01 lot, ×1.5, 200-pip step, TP 50, DD budget 35% $50,000 +$21,015 2.05 5.7% 1,286 High 0.40 lot, ×2.0, 100-pip step, TP 1,000, DD budget 35% $100,000 +$829,156 1.75 31.3% 2,542 Aggressive (not recommended) 0.02 lot, ×2.5, no DD budget $100,000 –$157,374 0.68 118.8% – account lost 4,356

Backtests show how the settings behaved on past data. They do not predict future results.

Risks – please read

• This is a grid with increasing lot sizes (martingale-type). A long one-way move against an open basket can produce large floating losses. There is no stop loss by default.
• With default settings, equity drawdown reached 70.8% in the August – October 2026 real-tick test. The ×2.5 lot progression wiped the test account.
• Use risk capital only, start on a demo or cent account, and turn on the drawdown budget and account limits if you need hard loss caps.
• No profit is guaranteed. Results depend on broker, spread, swaps, contract size and execution.

What you get

• Vintage Gold Grid (.ex5) for MetaTrader 5 – source code not included.
• Preset files: VGG Default, VGG Low-risk, VGG Wide-step and VGG High (.set).
• Setup guide.

Support

Questions and set-up help through SleekFX telegram messages. Updates are announced in this listing's changelog, and settings changes are always described before release.