Seven configurations, and which one to run
All seven are the same script; only input values differ. The Default is what the script loads with. The others are Load Parameters files, copied from their tabs below and pasted into TradingView’s settings dialog through Load parameters.
The first four are Micro Gold futures. The XAUUSD tabs are a different instrument — spot gold on a CFD feed — and are not comparable to the Micro Gold ones row for row: it runs at quantity 10 against a $1-per-ounce point value, so its dollar figures are a different size of position, not a better strategy. Its results are on the OANDA XAUUSD chart. CFD prices and volume differ by broker, so results on another broker’s chart will differ.
| configuration | shape | last 365 days (TradingView) | run it when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default | everything described under What changed below | 523 trades, 62.9% win, +$20,558, PF 1.64 | a normal account: the most trades and the most net in the backtest |
| Prop Safe | the Default with three filters tightened: anti-liquidation 2.0 × ATR (from 3.5), maximum VWAP extension 2.2 standard deviations (from 2.7), short RSI reset 56 (from 39) | 270 trades, 68.2% win, +$12,658, PF 1.96 | a funded evaluation, a prop account or a small account: higher win rate and less drawdown, for about half the profit |
| Default · 8:30 PM start | the Default with the trading window starting at 8:30 PM ET instead of 6:45 PM — see Later start below | 444 trades, 65.1% win, +$19,348, PF 1.77 | you want fewer, better trades and can give up a little profit |
| Prop Safe · 8:15 PM start | Prop Safe with the trading window starting at 8:15 PM ET | 234 trades, 69.7% win, +$11,458, PF 2.05 | the steadiest option: a funded or prop account where consistency matters most |
| XAUUSD | a different instrument, not a third tuning — see Spot gold below | 447 trades, 67.6% win, +$24,105, PF 1.62 | you trade spot gold on a CFD broker rather than Micro Gold futures |
| XAUUSD Prop Safe A | spot gold, a recent clear pullback required (RSI look-back 16, RSI length 19), 7:50 PM start — see Spot gold Prop Safe below | 196 trades, 70.4% win, +$11,109, PF 1.77 | spot gold on a funded or prop account |
| XAUUSD Prop Safe B | spot gold, a deeper pullback required (Overbought 62, Oversold 39), 7:50 PM start — see Spot gold Prop Safe below | 207 trades, 74.4% win, +$14,143, PF 2.00 | spot gold on a funded or prop account: the stronger of the two over the year |
Hypothetical backtest · 1 MGC contract · $1.20/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included · the four Micro Gold rows · not a prediction of future results
Hypothetical backtest · 0.10 lots XAUUSD (10 oz, $10/pt ≈ 1 MGC in exposure) · $0.025/oz/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included; spread not included · the three XAUUSD rows · not a prediction of future results
What Prop Safe gives up, and what it buys. It skips entries straight after an oversized candle, entries when price is already stretched far from VWAP, and shorts that have not had a real bounce first. That removes about half the trades. The ones that remain win more often and lose less: on the tuning window below it is 81% winners against 75%, and over the longer history since January 2024 it has the smaller drawdown and more quarters positive.
It is not the Default with shorts switched off. It still takes about one short for every three longs, and a shorts-off version measured worse on every window.
Later start
The two later start configurations change one setting: Trading Window (ET) starts at 8:30 PM (Default) or 8:15 PM (Prop Safe) instead of 6:45 PM. Nothing else moves.
Why. The start of the evening session is the weakest part of the day. Over the last year, entries in the first fifteen minutes (6:45–7:00 PM) lost money on both configurations, with about a 40% win rate. And the evening trades as a group tie up the position and the session’s trade budget, so later setups that are just as good get skipped. Starting later drops the evening trades and lets those later ones in: fewer trades, a higher win rate, a higher profit factor.
What it costs. A little profit. The same year on the same chart, both run in TradingView’s Strategy Tester on 6–7 October 2026:
| Micro Gold, 5-minute, 1 contract | trades | win | profit factor | net | drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Default, 6:45 PM start · last year | 526 | 63.1% | 1.64 | +$20,799 | $1,665 |
| Default, 8:30 PM start · last year | 444 | 65.1% | 1.76 | +$19,348 | $1,751 |
| Default, 6:45 PM start · since 7 June | 179 | 73.7% | 2.99 | +$13,516 | $517 |
| Default, 8:30 PM start · since 7 June | 156 | 78.2% | 4.07 | +$14,136 | $517 |
| Prop Safe, 6:45 PM start · last year | 268 | 67.9% | 1.89 | +$12,073 | $1,057 |
| Prop Safe, 8:15 PM start · last year | 234 | 69.7% | 2.05 | +$11,458 | $1,029 |
| Prop Safe, 6:45 PM start · since 7 June | 89 | 79.8% | 4.21 | +$7,241 | $213 |
| Prop Safe, 8:15 PM start · since 7 June | 75 | 84.0% | 6.21 | +$7,029 | $210 |
Hypothetical backtest · 1 MGC contract · $1.20/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included · not a prediction of future results
Over the last year the later starts make 7% (Default) and 5% (Prop Safe) less, with a higher win rate and profit factor. Since June the Default’s later start makes more, not less. Over the longer history from January 2024, the Default’s later start keeps the same net at a higher profit factor and a smaller worst quarter. Prop Safe’s later start gives up some net there for one more positive quarter and a much smaller worst quarter.
Pick by what you need. Most net in the backtest: the 6:45 PM starts. Fewer losing trades and a smoother curve: the later starts. Any start from about 7:40 PM to 8:50 PM behaves like these; starting later than 8:50 PM gives up good trades. The start times were chosen with the whole of the last year in view, so the real test is forward.
What changed since v2.2.4
Two new settings and nine moved defaults. No input was renamed or removed, so every saved v2.2.x configuration still loads.
The directional time gate
A new panel stops one side taking new entries for the late part of a session while the other side trades normally. A position already open is never touched — it still runs to its own target, stop or end-of-day close.
Stop taking LONG entries later in the session ships on, from 12:45 PM ET. Stop taking SHORT entries later in the session ships off. Each has its own time, and the window runs to the end of that session’s own trading window, so on an overnight session it cannot spill into the next evening’s open.
Gold tends to slump or sell off into the New York close, and late longs are the trades that suffer for it. Blocking late shorts looks appealing per trade — they are the weaker side after lunch — but it was worse for the account: it removed profit and increased drawdown, because those trades were offsetting losses elsewhere. Both switches ship so either can be tested; only the long one is on.
The 12:45 setting is not a fitted number. Every cut-off from 10:30 AM to 2:45 PM produces almost the same profit factor over the full test period.
The nine moved defaults
| setting | v2.2.4 | v2.2.5 |
|---|---|---|
| Min VWAP Distance filter | off | on, 0.35 points |
| RSI Reset short threshold | 34.5 | 39 |
| Long take-profit | 0.52% | 0.375% |
| Breakeven | on | off, both sides |
| Long trail distance | 0.25% | 0.285% |
| Short trail distance | 0.35% | 0.385% |
| Short trail trigger | 0.35% | 0.365% |
Breakeven comes off and the trail, set slightly wider, does the protecting on its own. The long target comes in so winners are banked sooner. And the short entry’s RSI reset threshold finally does something — at 34.5 that condition was satisfied on almost every session bar, which meant the short side was entering on little more than RSI below 50.
One visible consequence: the Flatten Breakeven exit label no longer appears in the trade list.
Spot gold
The XAUUSD tab is a different instrument, not a third tuning of the Micro Gold config. Spot gold and Micro Gold futures share an underlying but not a tick, a volume profile or a session structure — and because VWAP is volume-weighted, the same price series with a different volume series is a different indicator. The Micro Gold values do not transfer, and this configuration was built from scratch against a real spot-gold chart.
It starts from a v2.2.5 gold configuration that was already running on an OANDA chart, and changes eleven things. Three of them are switches coming off:
- the MAE exit, which was closing trades that went on to recover
- the long trail, which was cutting long winners before their target
- the long time gate, which was blocking longs after 11:00 AM ET
The rest give the remaining trades more room: the long bracket widens to 0.75% / 0.775%, the short target tightens to 0.445% while its stop widens to 0.60%, the short trail triggers much later and follows much looser (0.49% / 0.485%), and the MFE exit moves out to 0.45%.
The largest single change is the last one. The minimum VWAP slope rises from 1.45 to 2.25, which stops the strategy taking trades while VWAP is essentially flat — the condition it has no edge in. That one setting is worth more than every exit change combined, and it holds across a wide band: every value from 2.00 to 2.50 beats 1.45 on both holdout windows, so it is a plateau rather than a lucky number.
Against the configuration it was derived from, on the same chart and the same 365 days:
| parent config | XAUUSD | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| net | +$19,203 | +$24,105 | +25.5% |
| maximum drawdown | $2,729 | $1,688 | −38% |
| profit factor | 1.492 | 1.622 | |
| win rate | 62.04% | 67.56% | |
| trades | 598 | 447 | −25% |
| net ÷ drawdown | 7.0× | 14.3× |
Hypothetical backtest · 0.10 lots XAUUSD (10 oz, $10/pt ≈ 1 MGC in exposure) · $0.025/oz/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included; spread not included · not a prediction of future results
More money on a quarter fewer trades, with substantially less drawdown.
What was tried and rejected, because a list of wins without the losses is not evidence: the MACD settings and both RSI blocks were swept exhaustively and left exactly as they were. A faster MACD improved both holdout windows while every other setting sat at its original value — and made things worse once the exits were unconstrained, which is why it is not in here. A looser overbought level produced a positive result in every quarter and a higher deep-history profit factor, on fewer than half the trades; a perfect record on a halved sample is the least durable result in a study, not the most.
Spot gold Prop Safe
The two XAUUSD Prop Safe tabs are spot gold made more conservative for funded and prop accounts: fewer trades that win more often, with less drawdown, for less profit. They are built from the gold configuration running live on the OANDA chart, not from the XAUUSD tab above. That live configuration keeps the long trail and the long time gate on, with a 0.375% long target and a 7:15 PM start; the XAUUSD tab is an earlier tuning that turns those off.
Both make the same two kinds of change. They start the trading window at 7:50 PM ET instead of 7:15, and they make the RSI filter stricter, so a trade needs a real pullback behind it. They differ in how:
- Prop Safe A shortens the look-back for the oversold or overbought touch from 24 to 16 bars and slows the RSI from 15 to 19. The pullback has to be recent and clear.
- Prop Safe B keeps the look-back and moves the levels: Overbought 56 → 62 and Oversold 44 → 39. The pullback has to be deeper.
The same year on the same chart, OANDA:XAUUSD, entries 8 October 2025 to 24 September 2026, drawdown trade to trade:
| spot gold, 5-minute, quantity 10 | trades | win | profit factor | net | drawdown | months positive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| live configuration, 7:15 PM start | 443 | 70.2% | 1.74 | +$24,566 | $2,522 | 9 of 12 |
| Prop Safe A | 193 | 69.9% | 1.73 | +$10,557 | $1,175 | 11 of 12 |
| Prop Safe B | 202 | 74.8% | 2.03 | +$14,090 | $1,241 | 11 of 12 |
Hypothetical backtest · 0.10 lots XAUUSD (10 oz, $10/pt ≈ 1 MGC in exposure) · $0.025/oz/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included; spread not included · not a prediction of future results
Over the year, B is clearly the stronger. The two share about 120 trades.
The trades only B takes win 77% of the time at profit factor 2.30; the trades
only A takes win 64% at 1.50. Most of the gap is on the short side. Both halve
the drawdown and turn a worst month of −$542 into one of about −$150. A
keeps less than half the profit without raising the win rate. B keeps 57% of it
and lifts the win rate from 70.2% to 74.8% and the profit factor from 1.74 to 2.03.
Since mid-June, A has been the steadier. From 14 June it is 60 trades at 80.0% and profit factor 3.48 against B’s 69 trades at 79.7% and 2.78, for about the same net. Pick B for the year-long record, A if you weight the recent months.
How they were chosen. Every combination of each one’s two RSI settings with every start time from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM was tested, back to January 2024 and on the OANDA chart’s recent bars. Starts before about 7:15 PM rarely pass a prop screen on any setting; from 7:15 to 8:00 PM the charted settings are the best or near the best on profit. Each sits inside a band of neighbouring values that pass too, not on a lone peak. The year-long table above is from TradingView’s Strategy Tester.
Results
Micro Gold, 5-minute, 1 contract, a $50,000 account, $1.20 per side and 1 tick of slippage. Every row is a TradingView Strategy Tester result: the Default’s run on 21 September 2026, Prop Safe’s on 22 September. The selection window is 7 June 2026 onward — the range this configuration was tuned on, so read it as the best case, not as what to expect.
The XAUUSD rows are a different instrument and a different cost basis, and they are not comparable to the two above: spot gold on the OANDA CFD feed, 5-minute, quantity 10 against a $1-per-ounce point value, the same $50,000 account, $0.025 per contract per side — the real Skilling/TradeLocker fee — and 1 tick of slippage. Spread is not modeled, which at this size would cost roughly $3.60 a round turn; set your own broker’s in Properties before reading anything off it. Run 24 September 2026, selection window 14 June 2026 onward — its own chart range, a week later than the Micro Gold runs.
| configuration · window | trades | net | win | profit factor | drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Default · last 365 days | 523 | +$20,558 | 62.9% | 1.64 | $1,665 |
| Default · selection window | 159 | +$12,898 | 75.5% | 3.21 | $517 |
| Prop Safe · last 365 days | 270 | +$12,658 | 68.2% | 1.96 | $1,057 |
| Prop Safe · selection window | 80 | +$6,850 | 81.3% | 4.58 | $213 |
| Default · 8:30 PM start · last 365 days | 444 | +$19,348 | 65.1% | 1.77 | $1,751 |
| Default · 8:30 PM start · since 7 June | 156 | +$14,136 | 78.2% | 4.07 | $517 |
| Prop Safe · 8:15 PM start · last 365 days | 234 | +$11,458 | 69.7% | 2.05 | $1,029 |
| Prop Safe · 8:15 PM start · since 7 June | 75 | +$7,029 | 84.0% | 6.21 | $210 |
| XAUUSD · last 365 days | 447 | +$24,105 | 67.6% | 1.62 | $1,471 |
| XAUUSD · selection window | 129 | +$10,306 | 74.4% | 2.30 | $987 |
| XAUUSD Prop Safe A · last 365 days | 196 | +$11,109 | 70.4% | 1.77 | $1,175 |
| XAUUSD Prop Safe A · since 14 June | 60 | +$5,948 | 80.0% | 3.48 | $508 |
| XAUUSD Prop Safe B · last 365 days | 207 | +$14,143 | 74.4% | 2.00 | $1,241 |
| XAUUSD Prop Safe B · since 14 June | 69 | +$6,047 | 79.7% | 2.78 | $518 |
Hypothetical backtest · 1 MGC contract · $1.20/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included · the Micro Gold rows · not a prediction of future results
Hypothetical backtest · 0.10 lots XAUUSD (10 oz, $10/pt ≈ 1 MGC in exposure) · $0.025/oz/side commission and 1 tick slippage per side included; spread not included · the XAUUSD rows · not a prediction of future results
The later-start and XAUUSD Prop Safe rows were run on 7 October 2026, so their 365 days end two weeks after the rows above.
Drawdown here is measured trade to trade. TradingView’s own figure also counts
the swing inside an open trade, so it reads a little higher — $1,174 and $360
for the two Prop Safe rows, $1,688 and $1,059 for the two XAUUSD ones, and
$1,802 and $1,205 for the two later-start 365-day rows, and $1,242 for
XAUUSD Prop Safe A’s.
If you open the script on TradingView today these will not match to the dollar, and they are not meant to. These results are a snapshot; your chart keeps trading past it, and your date range, broker costs and data feed are your own. Treat every number here as the shape of the thing, not a quote.
Read the holdouts
The table above is the window the configuration was chosen on. To see it on data it was not, look at the year before the selection window (June 2025 to May 2026) and at January 2024 to May 2025. These are hypothetical results over those periods.
Both configurations stay positive on both windows, at a much lower profit factor than on the tuned window. The Default is only just positive on January 2024 to May 2025, where v2.2.4 lost money. Prop Safe keeps a higher profit factor than the Default on both.
XAUUSD, stated separately. Its holdouts rank it against the configuration it was derived from; they are not an estimate of what the OANDA chart would have made. Against that parent, XAUUSD has the higher profit factor and more net on both windows. Over the full January 2024 to September 2026 span it is positive in every quarter, where the parent had losing quarters.
Across the full 1 January 2024 to 21 September 2026 span, against v2.2.4, the Default has a higher profit factor, more net and a smaller drawdown, with more quarters positive and a smaller worst quarter, on fewer trades at a lower win rate. Prop Safe over the same span has a higher profit factor, a smaller drawdown and more quarters positive than the Default, for less net.
The trade-off, stated plainly: win rate falls, and it trades less often. Breakeven is what used to turn a reversing trade into a scratch; without it those become small losses instead. Profit factor, net, drawdown and quarterly consistency all improve — win rate is the price, and it is a real one. Size by the holdouts, not by the selection window.
Known limits
- The tuned window is the last hundred days. The Default was selected on the 7 June 2026 onward range, and the holdouts are the honest statement of what to expect beyond it.
- Two instruments, tuned separately. Micro Gold and spot gold. Percent brackets travel; the anti-liquidation and candle-range filters are in ATR and travel too; the session hours, the time-gate cut-off and anything volume-weighted do not — which is why XAUUSD is its own configuration rather than the Micro Gold one pointed at a different symbol.
- XAUUSD’s holdouts are a rough guide. The 365-day and selection-window rows are the OANDA chart in TradingView’s Strategy Tester; the holdouts only rank XAUUSD against its parent and are not a dollar estimate.
- Spread is not modeled on XAUUSD. At quantity 10 it would cost roughly
$3.60a round turn against the$0.50of commission that is modeled. - Only the year and selection tables are TradingView Strategy Tester results. The holdouts are hypothetical results over earlier periods, and they are much weaker.
- Prop Safe was chosen with the older windows in view. Its three settings were picked because they beat the Default on the selection window and on both holdout windows at once, so those holdouts are no longer untouched for it; the forward test starts now.
- Split Sessions is not on this page. It remains on the v2.2.4 page at its v2.2.4 settings, and its Load Parameters file predates the time gate — read the note there before loading it onto this version.