NewStorm EA — User Guide

📖 Overview

NewStorm EA is a sophisticated tool designed to navigate market volatility using dynamic features and risk controls — including ATR-based spacing, dynamic lot allocation, smart drawdown reduction, trailing stops, and news-triggered trade initiation. The EA operates in multiple modes and provides an on-chart panel for manual control and real-time information.

⚡ Configuration Recommendations

Before diving into individual parameters, keep these principles in mind:

Risk Management: Grid trading involves risk. The EA includes drawdown reduction, trailing stops, and dynamic allocation to help manage it. Adjust Initial Lot Size, Lot Multiplier, and Maximum Trades Allowed to match your risk tolerance.
Volatility & Dynamic Settings: Enable Adapt To Volatility and configure ATR parameters if you want the grid to respond to market conditions. Use dynamic allocation settings to allow automatic adjustments as positions build.
News Triggering: To trade based on news events, enable Use News As Trigger and configure the associated settings. Verify that your news source parameters match your system's setup.
Trading Time Window: Activate the time window setting to restrict trading to specific hours, helping avoid low-liquidity periods.
Panel Interaction: When Show EA Panel is enabled, use the on-chart buttons to manually trigger or close trades for enhanced control.

🔧 Installation

Follow the standard MQL5 product installation guide for first-time setup. If you received the EA directly from Trade't, refer to the Trade't EA installation guide instead.

⚙️ A. General Settings

Parameter	Description
EA Comment	Acts as the EA's identifier — appears in log messages and trade comments.
EA Magic Number	Uniquely identifies the EA's trades. Use a unique number if running multiple EAs on the same account.
Manage Old Trades	When enabled, the EA manages previously opened trades matching its Magic Number — loading all longs in one basket and all shorts in another (same magic and symbol).
EA Trigger Mode	Grid Trigger — for testing or pure grid strategies. News Trigger — to trade based on news events.
Show EA Panel	Displays an on-chart panel for manual control and status monitoring.
Print Log	Includes the EA's logs in the Experts tab, giving a comprehensive step-by-step view of current logic.

📊 B. Trading Settings

Parameter	Description
Allow EA to take Buy	Permits the EA to open buy trades.
Allow EA to take Sell	Permits the EA to open sell trades.
Maximum Trades Allowed Per Batch	Sets the maximum number of trades that can be opened in a grid batch.
Initial Lot Size	Determines the lot size of the first trade in a grid batch.
Virtual TP (Points — 0 not used)	A virtual take profit level in points. 0 disables it.
Virtual SL (Points — 0 not used)	A virtual stop loss level in points. 0 disables it.
Max Spread Allowed (Points — 0 not used)	Prevents the EA from taking trades during high spreads.
Allow Multiple Batches	If `false`, only one batch opens at a time. If `true`, control the maximum via Number of Batches Allowed.
Number of Batches Allowed	Determines the maximum number of batches open simultaneously.
Activate Trailing Stop	Turns on the trailing stop feature to protect gains.
Profit in points to activate trailing stop	The profit level (in points) required before trailing begins.
Trailing step in points	The incremental step (in points) by which the trailing stop is moved.

Lot Size Example — $100,000 Account (1% Risk per Full Grid)

Use this example to calibrate your own settings before going live. You can also use our interactive Grid Risk Simulator to model your exact parameters.

Variable	Value
Risk Budget	1% of $100,000 = $1,000
Grid Spacing	200 points
Pip-Value (XAU/USD)	$1 per point per standard lot
Levels (N)	10
Multiplier (m)	1.5
Broker Minimum Lot	0.01 lots

Calculation steps:

Total drawdown per 1 lot (j = 1→10): [1.5^(j−1) × (10−j+1) × 200] ≈ 63,998 points
Exact initial lot: $1,000 ÷ 63,998 ≈ 0.0156 lots
Rounded lot: L₀ = max(0.01, ceil(0.0156/0.01) × 0.01) = 0.02 lots
Worst-case drawdown: 0.02×2000 + 0.03×1800 + … + 0.93×200 ≈ $1,506 (1.51%)

Takeaway: With a 0.01 minimum lot, you start at 0.02 lots. True worst-case drawdown ≈ $1,506 (1.51%). To hit exactly 1%, adjust spacing, multiplier, or risk %.

📰 C. News Trigger

Parameter	Description
News Refresh Period in Seconds	Time between retries to fetch news. News may not be available exactly at their expected release time — the EA retries until they are released.
Max Retry to Ignore News	After X failed retries, the EA skips the current trade.
Currency	Select the currency whose news you want to trade. The EA determines buy or sell direction based on news impact.
News to Consider	Add specific news names separated by `,` to only trade those events. Text must match Investing.com calendar exactly.
News to Ignore	Add specific news names separated by `,` to exclude from trading. Text must match Investing.com calendar exactly.
High Impact News Color	Color for high-impact news markers on the chart (ignored if set to None).
Moderate Impact News Color	Color for moderate-impact news markers.
Low Impact News Color	Color for low-impact news markers.
Inverse Trades	Inverts the news-based trade direction. Useful for instruments without base/quote currencies (e.g., BRENT, US500). See example below.
Number of Retries to Download News	Number of retries before sending a failure push notification.
Send Notification on Download Errors	If enabled, sends a push notification when the calendar fails to update.

Important notes:

News data is sourced from investing.com — allow web requests to this URL in MT5 options.
Backtesting of news events is possible — check Section I. However, be aware that extreme live-market conditions such as widened spreads and slippage during news events are not simulated with the same realism in MetaTrader's backtester.

Inverse Trades Example

Default configuration trades Brent as a sell when the news is negative for USD. This is not logical — if the USD weakens, Brent typically rises. Enabling Inverse Trades flips the direction so the EA trades in the correct correlation.

Inverse Trades Example — MT5 Experts tab showing BRENT direction logic

Push Notifications Setup

In v1.3, a retry mechanism was added. After N retries when news download fails, the EA sends a push notification so you can intervene manually. Configure your MetaQuotes ID as shown below:

EA Panel and MT5 Notifications settings showing MetaQuotes ID configuration

🕐 D. Trading Time

Parameter	Description
Set Time to Trade	Enable to restrict trading to a specific time window.
Trading Start Hour (0–23)	The hour when trading is allowed to begin.
Trading Start Minute (0–59)	The minute marking the beginning of the trading window.
Trading End Hour (0–23)	The hour when trading stops.
Trading End Minute (0–59)	The minute marking the end of the trading window.

🔲 E. Grid Essential

Parameter	Description
New Candle	When enabled, the EA only checks for new trades on a new candle. When disabled, it checks on every tick.
Lot Multiplier	The lot size increases for subsequent trades by this factor.
Grid Distance (Points)	The point interval between each grid trade entry.
Adapt Grid Size To Volatility	Enable to adjust grid spacing based on market volatility (ATR-based).
Multiplier	Multiplies the ATR-calculated value to scale the grid distance.
ATR Period	Default 14 — the lookback period for ATR calculation.
ATR Timeframe	The timeframe on which ATR is calculated.

🔄 F. Dynamic Grid

This section makes the grid more dynamic and overrides the distance and lot size settings from the Grid Essential section.

Parameter	Description
Enable Dynamic Allocation	Activates dynamic adjustments to lot sizes and grid distances as trade count increases.
Start After Trade Number	Dynamic allocation begins after this many trades are opened.
Factor to Adjust Distance	Multiplier to dynamically adjust the grid distance.
Factor to Adjust Lot Size	Multiplier applied to adjust the lot size for subsequent trades.

📉 G. Smart Drawdown Reduction

Parameter	Description
Enable Drawdown Reduction	Activates the drawdown reduction mechanism. Once Start After Trade Number trades are open, the EA closes the first and last trades together, keeping the rest open and following trailing stop rules.
Aggressive DD Reduction (v1.6+)	The EA aggressively and recurrently closes the last open trade with the first open trade until all trades in a batch are closed.
Start After Trade Number	Begins drawdown reduction after this many trades are opened.
Minimum Profit (Money)	The minimum combined profit required to close the first and last trades together.

DD Reduction Comparison

The image below shows real account scenarios with both the old and new aggressive DD reduction mechanisms. The old method closes the oldest trade with the newest, then trailing stops close the remaining trades together. The aggressive method continuously opens trades at a certain grid level and closes older ones (visible as the three green circles).

Old vs New DD Reduction comparison on real account

🛑 H. Hard Stop

The Hard Stop is a global safety net that stops all EA activity when a predefined loss threshold is reached — acting as a last line of defence regardless of other risk settings.

Hard Stop is disabled by default. It is strongly recommended to configure it before running the EA on a live account.

Parameter	Default	Description
Enable Hard Stop	`false`	Activates the hard stop mechanism.
Use % of Balance (false = fixed money)	`true`	When `true`, the threshold is a percentage of account balance. When `false`, it's a fixed monetary amount.
Hard Stop % of Balance	`5.0`	Maximum allowed loss as a percentage of balance (e.g. `5` = 5%). Used when percentage mode is active.
Hard Stop Fixed Amount	`100.0`	Maximum allowed loss in account currency. Used when fixed money mode is active.
Cooldown Period in Hours	`24`	How many hours the EA pauses before resuming trading after the hard stop is triggered.

Set the Hard Stop threshold to a level that still allows your drawdown reduction and trailing stop mechanisms to work, but that caps catastrophic loss. For a $10,000 account, a 5% hard stop ($500) is a reasonable starting point.

🧪 I. Backtesting

Starting with v1.7, NewStorm EA supports backtesting of news-driven strategies by replaying a historical news feed from your own Backtest.csv file.

Setup

In MetaTrader 5, go to File → Open Data Folder
In the Explorer window, navigate back to the Terminal folder
Open the common files subfolder (e.g. C:\Users\<YourUser>\AppData\Roaming\MetaQuotes\Terminal\Common\Files)
Copy Backtest.csv into that Common folder
Restart the Strategy Tester (or reload the EA) so it picks up the new news feed

The CSV is updated at the end of each month and contains data from 2020 onwards.

MT5 Strategy Tester optimization results

Backtesting Limitations

Backtest results are inherently approximate for news-trading strategies. Extreme live conditions — widened spreads and slippage during the news spike — are not fully reproduced by MT5's strategy tester. Treat backtest metrics as directional guidance, not guarantees.

Specific factors to be aware of:

News timestamps may arrive later than the original release
Fetching delays from Investing.com cannot be replicated in the tester
Your broker's execution behaviour in live conditions differs from simulation
MT5 does not model spread widening during high-impact events with full realism

For scalping strategies, these factors have an even greater impact — calibrate your expectations accordingly.

🎥 Video Tutorials

Watch the NewStorm EA playlist on YouTube

📋 Disclaimer

The products and software provided by Trade't are tested in certain market conditions and technical environments. Trade't is not responsible for any loss, error, or misuse of the provided software. Users are invited to do their own testing in a demo environment before using any tools in a live setting with real money — this decision is their sole responsibility and at their own risk.

Past performance is no indication or guarantee of future performance. Trading forex involves a significant risk of loss. Always do your due diligence before making any investment decision.