EURUSD, GBPUSD, US100.cash, US30.cash, US500.cash, XAUUSD · H4→M15

REGULATOR — Break & Retest Log

Every setup the EA reached a decision on, and why it did or did not take it.

live
Trading enabled and journalling.
built 25 Sep 2026 17:35 UTC
What is this? — start here if you have not seen it before

The short version

This is a trading program that watches six markets — gold, two currency pairs and the three big US stock indices — and takes a specific kind of trade automatically. This page is its diary: every setup it looked at, and why it did or did not take it.

The trade it looks for

Prices tend to stall at particular levels — places where the market has turned before. The program finds those levels by itself, on the four-hourly chart, with no lines drawn by hand, and then watches the 15-minute chart for the trade.

Then it waits for three things in order. Price has to break through a level and close beyond it. It has to travel away, so a brief poke through does not count. And then it has to come back and touch that level again and hold. That last part is the retest, and it is the whole idea: a level that used to stop price should now support it from the other side.

Why most setups are refused

⭐ This is the part worth understanding, because it is most of what you will see here. A setup can look perfect and still be declined — the spread is too wide that second, a high-impact news release is minutes away, the trade would be against the bigger trend, a position is already open, or the level simply is not good enough.

Every refusal is written down with its reason. A strategy is defined as much by what it declines as by what it takes, and a filter nobody can see is a filter nobody can improve.

What happens once it is in

It risks half a percent of the account on each trade, and never guesses the size — it is calculated from the distance to the stop-loss.

When the trade is up by the amount it originally risked, it banks a third. The remainder runs for twice the risk. The stop does not move.

⭐ The break-even move is switched off, and that was a finding. On fourteen months of history it lifted the win rate from 34% to 48% and cost about 12R: it turned losers into scratches, which flatters the win rate, while cutting short the few large winners the shape depends on. Win rate is exactly the number a break-even rule is built to improve, and it is the number that fooled us for a day. ⚠ A win rate on this page that looks low is the rule working, not failing — at a 2:1 target the break-even point is about 33%.

⚠ What this does not claim

It is running on a demo account, not real money. The numbers on this page are from a handful of trades, which is far too few to say whether the strategy makes money.

⛔ Measured properly, it has no demonstrated edge. Over 27 months and 357 trades the edge before costs is zero — and costs are about −0.03R a trade, so the account loses at roughly the price of trading. Seven configurations in a row looked good on the data they were chosen on and reversed on data they had not seen. ⭐ The one encouraging finding is that the raw signal, before costs, is slightly positive on every instrument tested: the problem is that trading it costs more than it is worth, and cost is a property of instrument, timeframe and stop width — all three choosable.

The point of all this machinery is not to prove it works. It is to make the thing answerable: when there are enough trades to judge, the answer will come from a record rather than a feeling.

Reading the page

Right now is live state. The record is the totals. The pack breaks it down per instrument. R means multiples of what was risked — a trade that makes 1R made exactly what it stood to lose.

101,906.20
Balance · USD
+789.43
Today, realised
0.00%
Open risk · cap 1.0%
2.00%
Daily headroom · halt at 2%
read 5m ago from the EA · the broker's own figures
⚠ 11 closed trades over 2 days. These are risk figures, not a track record — judging the edge needs about 1,159 trades.
Right now
Trading
ON
EnableTrading, as journalled
Instruments
6
6 have decided · EURUSD, GBPUSD, US100.cash, US30.cash, US500.cash, XAUUSD
Last decision
SKIP BIAS
htf close 1.14013 ema 1.14534 swing -1
Journal
31
65m ago newest
Equity
101,906
USD · today +789.43 · as of 5m ago
Live configuration — reported by the EA itself, not read from a file: bias=ON retest=32 score=55 brkpos=0.00 deep=0.00 minstop=0.00 maxspr=0.00R tighten=0.65 session=OFF news=OFF risk=0.50% tp=2.0R [email protected] [email protected]/33% trail=OFF dd=6.0% maxopen=1.0%/2
The record
Setups seen
31
11 passed every gate, 20 refused
Taken
11
orders actually sent
Refused
20
65% of everything seen
Net R
+4.67
5/11 won
Net USD
+1,694.25
10 of 11 closed trades priced
The trades

Every closed trade, one row each

Aggregates hide the shape. Five trades averaging a third of an R could be five small winners or four losses and a windfall, and only the second of those tells you anything about what to expect next.

bars: each trade in R · line: running total · now +4.67R
#OpenedInstrumentSideScoreRMoneyBestWorstExit
12026.09.23 08:30XAUUSDshort100+1.025—+1.02-0.20closed_other
22026.09.23 15:00XAUUSDshort92+1.350+843.68+2.01+1.92*TP1
32026.09.24 01:15US30.cashshort82+1.676+839.03+2.04-0.31TP1
42026.09.24 15:00EURUSDshort80-0.401-248.73+1.18-1.05closed_other
52026.09.24 17:30US500.cashlong77-1.049-529.16-0.31-1.02SL
62026.09.25 00:45GBPUSDshort70-1.026-551.04-0.36-1.00SL
72026.09.25 02:00US500.cashlong75+2.427+1,206.57+3.10-0.81TP1
82026.09.25 02:30EURUSDshort80-0.394-258.40+1.41-1.03closed_other
92026.09.25 09:30EURUSDshort100-1.014-571.20+0.28-1.01SL
102026.09.25 12:45XAUUSDshort80+2.443+1,217.39+3.11-0.86TP1
112026.09.25 14:00EURUSDshort80-0.372-253.89+2.50-1.00SL

⭐ Best and Worst are how far the trade ran in each direction before it closed, in R. A trade that reached +1.9R and closed at +0.3R gave something back; one that never left −0.3R was never right. ⚠ A positive Worst marked * means the EA restarted mid-trade and the excursion tracker was reseeded — it is not a real reading.

The picture

Every closed trade, drawn from the broker's own bars

The shaded band is the holding period, the gold dashes mark the entry and the white dashes the exit. Both take-profits are drawn: tp1 is where a third is banked at +1R, tp2 the target the remainder runs to — about 3R of the stop actually sent, because the target is priced off the untightened zone. Dots are the real fills, so a partial and a runner show as two. ⭐⭐ An amber ring marks a target we were NOT paid at, that price reached after we were out — a level the partial or the runner already filled is not a target we missed. On a scale-out strategy that is the single most informative mark here, and it is the whole reason these are drawn after the fact.

XAUUSDshortTP1+2.44R+1,217.39
tp2 3.1R 4,273.99tp1 1.0R · 33% 4,292.55stop 4,310.41entry 4,301.4825 Sep 06:4510:3014:3018:15UTC · M15
Price continued to 5.3R after the target filled.
EURUSDshortSL-1.01R−571.20
tp2 3.1R 1.13667tp1 1.0R · 33% 1.13816stop 1.13958entry 1.1388725 Sep 03:4508:3013:3018:15UTC · M15
⭐ Price went the other way after the exit. Leaving was right.
EURUSDshortclosed_other-0.39R−258.40
tp2 3.1R 1.13588tp1 1.0R · 33% 1.13708stop 1.13824entry 1.1376624 Sep 20:4525 Sep 03:4510:4517:30UTC · M15
⭐ Price went the other way after the exit. Leaving was right.
US500.cashlongTP1+2.43R+1,206.57
tp2 3.1R 7,723.02tp1 1.0R · 33% 7,708.70stop 7,694.90entry 7,701.8024 Sep 20:0025 Sep 03:4510:3017:00UTC · M15
Price continued to 5.5R after the target filled.
GBPUSDshortSL-1.03R−551.04
tp2 3.1R 1.31875tp1 1.0R · 33% 1.32036stop 1.32190entry 1.3211324 Sep 18:4525 Sep 01:4508:4515:45UTC · M15
Price did little after the exit.
US500.cashlongSL-1.05R−529.16
tp2 3.1R 7,727.03tp1 1.0R · 33% 7,710.91stop 7,695.39entry 7,703.15tp1 reached without us24 Sep 11:3018:1525 Sep 02:0008:30UTC · M15
⛔ Stopped out, and price then reached +1R — the partial would have paid. It went on to 1.4R.
EURUSDshortclosed_other-0.40R−248.73
tp2 3.1R 1.13488tp1 1.0R · 33% 1.13655stop 1.13815entry 1.1373524 Sep 09:0016:0023:0025 Sep 06:00UTC · M15
Price recovered to 1.8R after the exit without reaching the target.
US30.cashshortTP1+1.68R+839.03
tp2 2.0R 51,371.50tp1 1.0R · 33% 51,410.43stop 51,488.29entry 51,449.3623 Sep 19:3024 Sep 03:0009:4516:15UTC · M15
Price continued to 5.5R after the target filled.
XAUUSDshortTP1+1.35R+843.68
tp2 2.0R 4,275.34tp1 1.0R · 33% 4,284.88stop 4,303.96entry 4,294.4223 Sep 09:0015:4522:3024 Sep 06:00UTC · M15
Price stalled after the target filled.
XAUUSDshortclosed_other+1.02R—
tp2 2.0R 4,300.79tp1 1.0R · 33% 4,309.83stop 4,327.91entry 4,318.87tp2 reached without us23 Sep 02:3009:3016:3023:30UTC · M15
⛔ Price reached the target after we were out. The exit cost this trade the move — it went on to 4.9R.
The pack

Each instrument, on its own

The four run the same logic with one thing changed per instrument — the spread cap, which is measured rather than carried across. ⛔ They also share a single Magic, which is what lets the account-wide risk cap see all of them at once: separate magics would make each instance blind to the others.

InstrumentDecisionsTakenRefusedTop reasonMedian spreadClosedNet RNewest row
EURUSD541BIAS 114-2.1865m ago
GBPUSD211BIAS 141-1.0316h ago
US100.cash101EXPIRED 11850—35h ago
US30.cash716BIAS 32281+1.683h ago
US500.cash1028BIAS 5602+1.383h ago
XAUUSD633EXPIRED 2453+4.824h ago

⚠ An instrument with decisions but zero taken and one dominant refusal code is usually a gate set wrong for that symbol, not a quiet market. The median spread column is there to make the commonest cause — a spread cap carried over from another instrument — visible at a glance.

Refusals

Why setups did not become trades

⭐ This is the point of the journal. A strategy is defined as much by what it declines as by what it takes, and a gate nobody can see is a gate nobody can tune. Every code below was written by the EA at the moment of the decision, before any order existed.

CodeCountShareWhat it means
EXPIRED840%
The retest never arrived inside the window, or the break failed and price closed back through the far side.
BIAS1155%
The trade was against HTF bias — price the wrong side of the EMA, or structure making lower highs and lower lows.
NEWS15%
Inside a configured high-impact window.

Were we right to refuse?

Every declined setup is kept running on the same rule, through the same code, to find out what it would have done. Nothing here was traded — and a shadow long pays the spread, so it is not flattered against the trades that were.

CodeRefusedFollowed upNever came backWould have wonWould have lostTheir R
EXPIRED85500—
BIAS115—05-5.00
NEWS11—01-1.00

⭐ A negative figure in the last column is the gate working: the trades it turned away lost money. A positive one means that gate cost us something. ⛔ Never add this column up across rows — the codes resolve at wildly different rates, so a pooled total says nothing.

Stops

Three recipes, one of them live

Every candidate records where all three stops would have sat. Only the zone-based one is ever sent to the broker. The other two cost nothing to record and are the only honest way to compare them later — on the same setups, not on a different backtest.

RecipeMean stop distanceTotal RMean RTrades
Zone + buffer
the one actually sent
8.5287+5.01+0.4611
ATR
entry ± 1.2 × ATR(HTF)
24.321+2.23+0.2011
Retest wick
beyond the retest candle + a tick
3.0683+13.48+1.2311
⚠ Every row here assumes the same exit. The journal records where each stop would have sat, not what price did on the way there — so a wider stop that would have survived an excursion, and a tighter one that would have been hit first, both look identical to this table. It ranks stop placement on trades that happened. It does not simulate the trades that a different stop would have produced. For that, run the Strategy Tester with the recipe swapped.
Structure

Does the zone score mean anything

Zones are scored 0–100 on touches, age, width and last reaction, and anything under MinScore is refused as WEAK. That threshold is a guess until this table disagrees with it.

Zone scoreSeenPassed gatesClosedTotal R
55–69300—
70–842188+3.30
85+733+1.36
Latency

Where the time goes

⛔ The bar is the latency. Confirming on a closed M15 bar means the entry can be up to fifteen minutes after the retest actually touched — a mean of about seven and a half. Nothing in this table comes close to that, and no amount of tuning here will. It exists so the claim can be checked rather than assumed. Working: docs/LATENCY.md.

TermMeanWorstSample
Bar close → decision
ticks reaching the EA
126.3 s3900.0 s31
Our own work
gates, sizing, all three stops
80.2 ms2423.5 ms31
OrderSend round trip
us to the broker and back
519 ms1090 ms11
The record

Every decision

Straight from the EA's own journal. Nothing here is derived, reconstructed or inferred — the row was written at the moment the decision was made, on the closed bar that produced it.

Time (UTC)SymbolDirZoneScoreDecisionReasonEntrySLLotSpreadBiasOutcomeR
2026.09.25 16:30EURUSDlong1.13913
1.13964
80 / 11tskipBIAS1.139821.139167.721againstskipped—
2026.09.25 14:15US500.cashlong7714.83
7717.67
72 / 12tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.0060withskipped—
2026.09.25 14:15US30.cashlong51465.50
51526.95
80 / 7tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.00210againstskipped—
2026.09.25 14:00EURUSDshort1.14025
1.14085
80 / 7tentry—1.140201.140847.981withSL-0.37
2026.09.25 12:45XAUUSDshort4303.90
4310.76
80 / 13tentry—4301.484310.410.5645withTP1+2.44
2026.09.25 12:30US30.cashshort51538.26
51589.90
80 / 8tskipBIAS51532.2651587.209.18238againstskipped—
2026.09.25 09:30EURUSDshort1.13913
1.13964
100 / 10tentry—1.138871.139587.140withSL-1.01
2026.09.25 09:30US30.cashlong51460.34
51477.29
92 / 4tskipBIAS51496.5451455.5412.37218againstskipped—
2026.09.25 02:30EURUSDshort1.13773
1.13823
80 / 10tentry—1.137661.138248.660withclosed_other-0.39
2026.09.25 02:00US500.cashlong7695.15
7698.35
75 / 13tentry—7701.807694.9072.8760withTP1+2.43
2026.09.25 00:45GBPUSDshort1.32117
1.32187
70 / 3tentry—1.321131.321906.564withSL-1.03
2026.09.25 00:15US500.cashshort7695.15
7698.35
75 / 13tskipBIAS7691.307698.5469.8360againstskipped—
2026.09.24 17:30US500.cashlong7695.15
7698.35
77 / 12tentry—7703.157695.3965.4960withSL-1.05
2026.09.24 17:30GBPUSDlong1.32117
1.32187
70 / 3tskipBIAS1.322041.321195.973againstskipped—
2026.09.24 15:00EURUSDshort1.13773
1.13823
80 / 10tentry—1.137351.138156.361withclosed_other-0.40
2026.09.24 14:45US500.cashlong7676.92
7679.33
72 / 4tskipBIAS7681.807676.2892.2960againstskipped—
2026.09.24 11:15US500.cashlong7657.43
7660.65
80 / 9tskipBIAS7667.557655.5442.4060againstskipped—
2026.09.24 11:15XAUUSDlong4252.72
4254.18
82 / 3tskipBIAS4259.144250.430.5845againstskipped—
2026.09.24 09:45XAUUSDshort4300.43
4301.95
72 / 16tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.0040withskipped—
2026.09.24 08:00US500.cashlong7671.27
7672.53
62 / 3tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.0060againstskipped—
2026.09.24 06:00US100.cashlong30344.93
30369.53
86 / 3tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.00185againstskipped—
2026.09.24 05:30US500.cashlong7685.47
7686.93
62 / 3tskipBIAS7691.507683.3862.7560againstskipped—
2026.09.24 03:30US500.cashlong7694.45
7697.50
100 / 5tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.0060againstskipped—
2026.09.24 01:15US30.cashshort51459.79
51471.21
82 / 3tentry—51449.3651488.2912.97268withTP1+1.68
2026.09.23 22:05US500.cashlong7704.25
7705.80
72 / 12tskipBIAS7712.607702.0047.6860againstskipped—
2026.09.23 15:00XAUUSDshort4300.57
4301.81
92 / 16tentry—4294.424303.960.5240withTP1+1.35
2026.09.23 14:00US30.cashshort51719.60
51729.33
69 / 3tskipNEWS51693.0551739.5310.77210withskipped—
2026.09.23 10:45US30.cashlong51876.75
51882.15
72 / 13tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.00228againstskipped—
2026.09.23 08:30XAUUSDshort4322.58
4326.07
100 / 6tentry—4318.874327.910.5538withclosed_other+1.02
2026.09.23 05:45XAUUSDlong4333.44
4334.94
72 / 6tskipEXPIRED0.000.000.0050againstskipped—
2026.09.23 05:30US30.cashshort51957.55
51991.26
100 / 10tskipBIAS51944.3652003.718.42238againstskipped—

Newest first. Showing the last 31 of 31 rows.

Read this before you trust a number

What this page cannot tell you

Paper rows are not trades. A row with enable_trading=false passed every gate and was never sent. It says the EA would have acted; it does not say the fill would have been there, at that price, with that spread.

R is price-based. It measures the distance travelled against the distance risked. It does not carry commission, swap or slippage on the exit.

Sample size beats cleverness. Every cut on this page — by refusal code, by stop recipe, by zone score — is arithmetic on whatever rows exist. At small counts that arithmetic is a shape, not a finding.

Ages come from time_utc, not the broker's clock. Three clocks run in this estate and the broker's is nobody's idea of UTC. The server time is kept in its own column for exactly that reason.