The purpose of this backtest is to evaluate the baseline implementation of the EMA Distance Trend strategy on XAUUSD before further optimization or strategy modification.

Test Configuration

Parameter	Value
Expert Advisor	EA-038_EMA_Distance_Trend
Symbol	XAUUSD.PRO
Timeframe	M1
Test Period	2026-01-02 → 2026-03-31
Initial Deposit	$1,000
Currency	USD
Leverage	1:500
History Quality	100% real ticks
Bars	85,161
Ticks	39,639,179

EA Parameters

General

Parameter	Value
Lot Size	0.01
Stop Loss	300 points
Take Profit	600 points
Magic Number	24032025
Slippage	10
Maximum Spread	35 points
Maximum Positions	1

Indicators

Parameter	Value
Fast EMA	20
Slow EMA	50
ATR Period	14
ATR Ratio	0.5

Trade Management

Parameter	Value
Break Even	Disabled
Break Even Trigger	150 points
Break Even Lock	0
Trailing Stop	Disabled
Trailing Start	200 points
Trailing Distance	200 points

Main Results

Metric	Result
Total Net Profit	-$991.90
Gross Profit	$14,553.90
Gross Loss	-$15,545.80
Profit Factor	0.94
Expected Payoff	-$0.14
Recovery Factor	-0.89
Sharpe Ratio	-5.00
Balance Drawdown Maximal	$1,105.73 (99.27%)
Equity Drawdown Maximal	$1,108.53 (99.27%)

Trade Statistics

Metric	Result
Total Trades	7,198
Total Deals	14,396
Winning Trades	2,334 (32.43%)
Losing Trades	4,864 (67.57%)
Short Trades	3,518
Short Win Rate	32.89%
Long Trades	3,680
Long Win Rate	31.98%
Largest Profit Trade	$34.90
Largest Loss Trade	-$42.23
Average Profit Trade	$6.24
Average Loss Trade	-$3.20
Maximum Consecutive Wins	8
Maximum Consecutive Losses	23
Average Consecutive Wins	1
Average Consecutive Losses	3

Position Holding Time

Metric	Result
Minimum	00:00:01
Maximum	03:45:55
Average	00:03:12

The strategy generated a high number of short-duration trades on the M1 timeframe.

MFE / MAE Statistics

Metric	Result
Correlation (Profit, MFE)	0.84
Correlation (Profit, MAE)	0.75
Correlation (MFE, MAE)	0.5518

Balance Curve

The balance curve shows substantial deterioration during the test period.

Starting balance:

$1,000

Final result:

$8.10

Net loss:

-$991.90

The strategy experienced a maximal balance drawdown of 99.27%.

Baseline Assessment

Status: FAILED — Baseline configuration is not suitable for deployment.

The baseline strategy produced:

Negative net profit
Profit Factor below 1.0
Negative expected payoff
Negative Sharpe Ratio
Extremely high drawdown
More losing trades than winning trades

Although the average winning trade ($6.24) was larger than the average losing trade (-$3.20), the win rate of 32.43% was insufficient to produce positive expectancy under this configuration.

The test therefore provides evidence that the current baseline configuration does not have acceptable performance on:

XAUUSD.PRO / M1 / 2026-01-02 → 2026-03-31

This result does not establish that the underlying EMA-distance concept is universally invalid. It establishes that this specific implementation and parameter configuration failed this backtest.

Research Decision

The current version should not proceed to live trading.

Further research should investigate whether performance can be improved through changes such as:

EMA parameters
ATR distance threshold
timeframe
entry filtering
trading session filtering
exit logic
stop-loss / take-profit configuration

Any modified version should be tested separately rather than replacing this baseline result.

This baseline should remain preserved as the reference result for EA-038.

Backtest Files

The directory should preserve the original MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester report and its associated charts.

Recommended structure:

Backtest/ └── EA-038_EMA_Distance_Trend/ ├── README.md ├── ReportTester-952747.html ├── ReportTester-952747.png ├── ReportTester-952747-hst.png ├── ReportTester-952747-mfemae.png └── ReportTester-952747-holding.png

Conclusion

The baseline EA-038 EMA Distance Trend strategy FAILED this XAUUSD M1 backtest.

Key result:

Profit Factor: 0.94
Net Profit: -$991.90
Max Drawdown: 99.27%
Win Rate: 32.43%
Total Trades: 7,198

The result should be retained as baseline research evidence before testing any improved version.