Learn · 6 min read
What makes XAUUSD different from every FX pair
Pip size, spread, session behaviour and the news that moves gold — the practical mechanics.
The mechanics
XAU/USD quotes the dollar price of one troy ounce. Most brokers define a pip as 0.10 of a dollar, so a move from 2400.00 to 2401.00 is 10 pips. Standard lot size is 100 ounces, making one pip roughly $1 per 0.01 lot in dollar terms — always confirm against your own broker's contract specification.
Spread is wider and far less stable than on major FX pairs, and it gaps at the daily rollover and around high-impact news. A strategy whose average win is 15 pips is not viable on gold.
Sessions matter more than on FX
The Asian session usually builds a tight range. London opens the first real expansion, and the London–New York overlap is where the majority of the daily range gets printed. Our guardrails restrict entries to the London and New York sessions for exactly this reason.
Our free market page shows a live session clock so you can see which phase you are in before you read a signal.
What actually moves gold
Real yields and the dollar dominate. US CPI, the FOMC decision and non-farm payrolls routinely move gold 200-400 pips within minutes, and geopolitical shocks produce weekend gaps.
No mechanical strategy handles a news spike well. The honest answer is to size smaller or stand aside around scheduled high-impact releases rather than pretend a filter solves it.