Apex EA — what it is and how I run it

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At a glance

Developer: Nomad Trader

What it is: a breakout system for MetaTrader 5, running on H1

Grid or martingale? No. One position at a time, with a stop on every trade

Risk level in my view: low to moderate, depending entirely on how you size it

Short version: the closest thing on my accounts to how I'd build something myself

What it is and how it works

Apex trades breakouts on the hourly chart, using Renko-style price movement to filter out the noise that catches most breakout systems in choppy conditions. It takes one position at a time and closes it at a defined stop when the trade is wrong. That last part sounds unremarkable until you've spent time looking at what else is sold in this market. Most EAs at this price point respond to a losing trade by opening more positions. Apex closes it and waits for the next setup. Very smart.

Where the risk sits

Every position carries a hard stop, so the worst case on any single trade is known before it opens. Your real exposure comes from how many positions can be open at once across pairs, and from the risk percentage you set. The honest weakness is the one every trend and breakout system has. In a directionless, choppy market it gets repeatedly pulled into breakouts that immediately reverse, and you get a run of small losses. That's uncomfortable to sit through even though each individual loss is contained. It isn't a flaw in the software so much as the weather this kind of strategy doesn't like, and if you can't tolerate a stretch of that, no setting will fix it for you.

The settings I run

I run version 7 on five pairs: EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCAD and NZDUSD. Risk is 1% per trade on four of them and 0.75% on NZDUSD currently. Maximum concurrent positions is capped at three. Two things I've taken off it, both worth explaining.I removed XAUUSD and USDCHF. When I went back through my own trade history and looked at where the losses were actually coming from, those two accounted for effectively all of them. Everything else was carrying them. Turning them off was the single biggest improvement I made to how this EA performs on my account, and it cost nothing. NZDUSD I've kept but reduced. It's been the weakest of the remaining pairs both on my account and in the developer's own results, so it runs at three-quarters the risk of the others rather than being cut entirely. One oddity worth knowing. USDJPY has been the strongest pair for me, but it hasn't appeared in the developer's live trading for well over a year. I don't know why, and I'd rather flag that than pretend I've got a tidy explanation. It's the sort of thing worth asking him about directly if you're considering the system. He’s quick to respond and very helpful. Version 7 was a genuine improvement on what came before it, so make sure you're running the current version rather than an older set file someone's passed around.

What I like

It does one thing and the logic is legible. There's no black box, no averaging, no clever recovery mode that turns out to be a martingale with a different name. When it loses, you can see exactly what happened and why.It's also genuinely low maintenance. Once the pairs and risk are set it doesn't need supervising, which is not quite true of everything else I run.

What to watch

Don't run every pair the default configuration offers just because it's there. My experience was that a couple of instruments were quietly undoing the work of the rest, and I'd never have spotted it without going back through the trade history pair by pair. Do that exercise on your own account after a few months rather than assuming the defaults suit you. Expect choppy periods to be frustrating. The system is doing what it's designed to do; the market just isn't offering what it needs.

Who it's for, and who it isn't

For anyone who wants breakout automation with visible, bounded risk and is prepared to sit through flat or negative stretches without interfering. It suits a trader who'd rather understand a modest system than own an impressive-looking one. Not for anyone expecting the smooth month-on-month curve you see on the EA marketplaces. Apex closes its losing trades, so you'll see them. That's the trade-off, and it's the right one.

Verdict

The most straightforward EA on my accounts and the one I'd point a newer automated trader at first, with the caveat that you should prune the pair list based on your own results rather than mine. It won't make you rich quickly. It also won't quietly accumulate a position that takes your account out, which over a long enough period matters considerably more.

Questions

Is Apex EA a martingale system?

No. It holds one position at a time and closes losing trades at a defined stop. It never adds to a position that's moving against it.

Which pairs should I run it on?

I run EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCAD and NZDUSD, having removed gold and USDCHF after finding they were the source of my losses. Start with the developer's recommendations, then review your own trade history after a few months and cut what isn't working.

What account size does it need?

To be honest I don’t truly know the answer to this one. Botond suggests 0.5-1% per trade to start off with so my guess would be roughly £500 to trade 0.01 lots each time.

Does broker choice matter?

I don’t believe so. I use a Raw Spread account with IC Markets, which has been working well.

Where can I see verified results?

The developer publishes his own verified track record, which is the right place to look rather than taking figures from me: Apex EA. He also has a really cool (and free!) Monte Carlo analysis tool where you can upload MT5 backtests into.

Anything I haven't covered? Ask me and I'll answer honestly, including if I think it's the wrong system for what you're doing.

Software only. This is another developer's product and I don't control how it performs. Nothing here is financial advice or a forecast of returns. Trading carries risk, including losing more than your deposit on leveraged products. High Tide Trading is not authorised or regulated by the FCA.