How to spot a martingale or grid EA before it spots your account

Martingale and grid Expert Advisors can show beautiful equity curves right up to the trade that wipes the account. Here are the warning signs in the report and in the inputs.

Why they look so good

A martingale EA increases position size after a loss, and a grid EA keeps adding positions as price moves against it. Both turn many small wins into a smooth, rising balance curve. The risk hasn't disappeared, though. It's concentrated in a rare losing run that the curve hasn't shown yet.

Warning signs in the Strategy Tester report

Win rate above ~85% combined with a large largest loss relative to the average win.
Equity dips far below balance during the test (open floating losses) even though the balance line looks smooth.
Lot sizes that grow after losses. Check the deals list.
Many positions open at once on the same symbol.
Maximum drawdown measured on equity far larger than on balance.

Warning signs in the inputs

Look for inputs like Multiplier, Lot exponent, Grid step, Max orders or Distance. None of them is automatically bad, but together with a missing stop-loss they are the classic signature.

How VERUM screens for it

The Selius VERUM scan reads EA source code and fails any EA that uses martingale sizing or grid averaging, or that has no stop-loss. Every EA in the Algo Dispensary Trial Armory passed that check (integrity 100/100). That's a code-quality screen, not a performance claim, and the next step is always a real-tick test.

Questions

Is every grid EA a scam?: No, but grid and martingale logic carries tail risk that short backtests rarely reveal. If you run one, cap the exposure with a hard equity stop.
What's the single best check?: Compare equity drawdown with balance drawdown in the report. A large gap means risk is hiding in open positions.

Put it into practice. Algo Dispensary drops VERUM-screened MT5 EAs every weekday and runs a weekly testing challenge. Members get Vidette, our equity-guard EA, free.

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