Analysing gold (XAUUSD): sessions, volatility and position size
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The short answer
Gold is quoted in dollars per ounce and traded in contracts of 100 ounces at most brokers, which means a one dollar move on the ounce is worth roughly 100 dollars per lot. It moves mainly between the London open and the end of the European afternoon, with bursts on the American data releases published around 14:30 Paris time. Its volatility calls for wider stops than a major currency pair, and therefore smaller sizes at equal risk. Finally, the name XAUUSD is common without being universal: GOLD, XAUUSD+, XAUUSD.std or XAUUSD.micro refer to the same metal at other brokers, with specifications that are not always identical.
What you are actually buying
On MT5 you hold no metal. You take a position on a contract whose price tracks the gold ounce quoted in dollars, and that convention explains everything else.
At most brokers, one lot represents 100 ounces. A one dollar move on the ounce is therefore worth about 100 dollars per lot, and ten cents are worth ten dollars. On a so-called micro account the same contract usually represents ten times less, and the same number of lots there means an exposure ten times smaller.
The exact specification is in your platform, by right-clicking the instrument and opening “Specification”. It is the only source worth trusting, because it comes from your broker rather than from an article.
The practical consequence is that reasoning in “points” imported from forex means nothing here. Fifty points on EURUSD and fifty points on gold are neither the same distance nor the same amount.
The hours when gold actually moves
The market is open from Sunday evening to Friday evening, with a daily break of about an hour in the evening whose exact timing depends on the broker. Open does not mean active.
The Asian session is usually narrow: ranges are small and the levels formed there hold poorly once Europe arrives. The first real volume appears at the London open, around 09:00 Paris time.
The second busy period is American: major data lands around 14:30 Paris time, the US equity open around 15:30, and central bank announcements around 20:00. Past 19:00, activity fades.
One practical caveat: these correspondences shift by an hour during the two or three weeks in spring and autumn when Europe and the United States do not change clocks on the same day.
What matters for an analysis: a chart read at six in the morning describes a market that has not yet seen the day’s volume. The three windows are detailed on our page about market sessions.
Volatility calls for a wider stop, not a tighter one
This is the most common mistake for someone arriving from forex. A day of gold routinely spans tens of dollars, where a major pair spans fractions of a cent. Keeping the same stop distance as in forex means placing it inside the noise, and being taken out by ordinary breathing.
The correct distance follows from what the instrument does, not from what you feel like risking. Once that distance is set, it is the size that adjusts to bring the loss back to the amount you accept. The full calculation, with a worked example, is on our page about risk per trade.
Two details are specific to gold. The spread is wider than on the major pairs, and it widens sharply around releases. And the price can open on Sunday evening far from its Friday close, which means a stop is not a guarantee of exiting at the exact price. Bitcoin, by contrast, never closes at the weekend, but it comes with constraints of its own.
The symbol name is not universal
XAUUSD is the most widespread name, and there is a good chance it is the one you see. It is not universal though: depending on the broker, gold also appears as GOLD, XAUUSD+, XAUUSD.std, XAUUSD.micro, sometimes XAUUSD247 for a round-the-clock variant.
These are not mere labelling differences. Two variants of the same metal can coexist in the same platform with a different spread, a different contract size, and one of the two may simply not be tradable on your account type.
Before computing a size, check the contract size of the variant you have actually selected, not that of the generic name. The subject is covered in full on our page about symbol suffixes and duplicates.
What SMC concepts bring to gold
Gold is liquid enough for its structure to be readable, which makes it a place where the usual notions apply without special adaptation: order blocks, imbalances, structure breaks and liquidity sweeps. The premium and discount split is added to those, telling you whether price is expensive or not inside the current move.
Two observations are its own. Round numbers visibly concentrate orders, and the previous day’s extremes as well as those of the Asian session are frequent targets before a real move.
And on a major release, zones are crossed without stopping: no chart reading replaces checking the economic calendar before entering.
What AlphaGPT does on gold
You send the screenshot of your chart. The tool finds gold under the name your broker gives it, fetches that variant’s real prices from them, and returns a written analysis in plain language.
Beside that text, a numbered plan is presented target by target, each with the size matching your risk percentage. When the market does not lend itself to an entry, the analysis says so instead of inventing one.
What a plan contains is explained on our page about reading an analysis. Trading carries a risk of capital loss.