Three problems come up again and again when you trade with Expert Advisors on MetaTrader 5: an EA trades straight into high-impact news, a bad day turns into a very bad one because nothing stops it, and at the end of the month nobody knows which EA earned the money. For each of these there is now a small free tool. None of them is a strategy, none of them opens a trade on a real account, and none of them gets an AlgoVerdict grade – our methodology rates strategies, not utilities.
Status 9 October 2026: all three tools are finished but not yet released on the MQL5 Market. They are planned as free products. Tested on 09.10.2026 on a RoboForex demo account, with the final builds after an external code review by three AI models from other providers (GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek), whose valid findings were fixed: Foghorn passed its self-test with 162 of 162 checks, Plimsoll Lite with 171 of 171 and Logbook with 164 of 164. Foghorn (EURUSD H1) and Plimsoll Lite (XAUUSD D1) ran validator-style without a single error line, and earlier versions also on further symbols. Live, Foghorn loads the economic calendar, and Logbook reconciled 8 EAs with 9,316 trades. Still open for all three are the official check by the MQL5 validator and the release. The details are on the individual pages.
The three tools side by side
| News Filter Foghorn | Daily Loss Guard Plimsoll Lite | Trade Dashboard Logbook | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | Expert Advisor (utility) | Expert Advisor (utility) | Indicator |
| Solves | EAs and pending orders running into high-impact news | A bad day that nothing stops | Not knowing which EA earns and which loses |
| What it does | Reads the MT5 economic calendar; alerts, can delete pendings, close positions, close trades opened in the window, publish a pause flag for your own EAs | At your daily loss limit: closes everything and locks the account until the next daily reset; optional daily profit target | One row per magic number: trades, win %, net, profit factor, drawdown, recovery factor, open P/L; six periods; CSV export |
| Out of the box | Alert only, nothing is closed | 5 % daily loss limit, reset 00:00 server time | All history, sorted by net profit |
| Who it is for | Anyone whose EAs have no reliable news filter, or who wants one rule for the whole account | Manual and EA traders who want a hard daily stop on their own account | Anyone running several EAs on one account |
| Honest limit | Cannot block another EA before it sends an order; only acts afterwards, unless your EA reads the pause flag | No max-drawdown lock, no prop-firm profiles, reset in server time only; gaps and slippage can go past the line | Drawdown from closed trades only; floating losses while a trade was open are not in it |
| Details | News Filter Foghorn | Plimsoll Lite | Logbook |
News Filter Foghorn
Foghorn reads the economic calendar built into MetaTrader 5 and builds a window around every high-impact event, by default 15 minutes before to 15 minutes after. It watches the whole account from one chart. Out of the box it only alerts you; you can switch on deleting pending orders, closing positions at the start of the window, closing trades opened inside it, and a pause flag – terminal variables that an EA whose code you can change reads before it trades.
Who it is for: traders whose EAs have no news filter, or a different one each, and who want one rule for the whole account. The limit: MetaTrader 5 does not let one program stop another from sending an order. Foghorn acts afterwards, unless your EA reads its pause flag. Background on news and EAs is in the guide News filters for EAs. All functions and settings of Foghorn →
Daily Loss Guard Plimsoll Lite
Plimsoll Lite records a day reference at your daily reset – the balance, or the higher of balance and equity – and draws a line below it, by default 5 %. When equity reaches it, pending orders are deleted, positions are closed starting with the largest loser, and the account is locked until the next reset. While it is locked, new trades from you, the mobile app or any EA are closed again. An optional profit target works the same way.
Who it is for: anyone who wants a hard daily stop on their own account. The limit: it is not a prop-firm rule monitor – no max-drawdown lock, no trailing drawdown, no firm time zones. All functions and settings of Plimsoll Lite →
Trade Dashboard Logbook
Logbook rebuilds the deal history into trades – grouped by position, magic number from the opening deal, all costs included, partial closes as one trade – and shows one row per EA for today, the week, month, year, all history or a custom start date. Click a header to sort, click EXPORT CSV for a spreadsheet.
Who it is for: anyone running several EAs on one account. The limit: the drawdown is calculated from closed trades; the drawdown while a trade was open can be much larger. What the numbers mean is explained in Trading metrics: drawdown, profit factor, Sharpe. All metrics and settings of Logbook →
Which broker?
All three tools work with any MetaTrader 5 broker; none of them needs a special account type. A few broker details still matter:
- Hedging or netting. On a netting account there is one position per symbol, shared by every EA and by manual trading. When Foghorn or Plimsoll Lite closes it, that affects all of them, and Logbook shows positions touched by several EAs as "Mixed (netting)". If several EAs trade the same symbol, a hedging account is the cleaner choice.
- The calendar. Foghorn uses the economic calendar that comes with the news feed of your broker's terminal. If the terminal provides no calendar data, the panel says so.
- Server time. Plimsoll Lite's reset and all of Logbook's periods run in your broker's server time – check the clock in the Market Watch.
Which brokers we recommend for MetaTrader 5 is in the comparison Best MT5 brokers and in our broker reviews. If you trade a prop firm account, the firm's rules decide more than the tool: which firms count a news trade or a daily loss differently is covered on the page Prop firms for Plimsoll.
VPS
All three tools run inside the MetaTrader 5 terminal. They only act while the terminal runs and is connected. If your computer sleeps, Foghorn deletes nothing before the news and Plimsoll Lite does not lock the account at the line. Stop loss and take profit lie at the broker and keep working; the tools do not. Logbook is less critical – it reads the history and catches up at the next start.
For Foghorn and Plimsoll Lite, a computer or server that runs all week is the usual answer, just like for the EAs they watch. Foghorn's pause flag has one extra condition: GlobalVariables belong to one terminal, so an EA that reads the flag must run in the same terminal as Foghorn. Why that matters and how to size it is in the guide VPS for EAs; providers we recommend are in the forex VPS comparison, and which brokers include a free VPS is in Brokers with a free VPS.
One exception: FundingPips forbids connecting via VPS or VPN. On a FundingPips account the terminal has to run on your own PC; switch off sleep while positions are open. Details are in the guide VPS for a prop firm guard.
Where to get the tools
All three are to be released free of charge on the MQL5 Market in the Utilities category for MT5. As soon as they are live, the links to the product pages will be on the detail pages.
Read on: News Filter Foghorn · Daily Loss Guard Plimsoll Lite · Trade Dashboard Logbook · Prop Firm Guard Plimsoll