Gold is driven mainly by real interest rates, the yield on inflation-protected US government bonds. Gold pays no yield, so when real yields rise it tends to fall, and when they fall it tends to rise. The dollar, safe-haven demand and central bank buying come next. Gold is not a currency pair, and we publish no price forecasts.
What moves gold
Check the 10-year TIPS yield, published daily by the US Treasury, before you open a chart. Use it as a bias filter, not a signal.
Inflation alone does not reliably lift gold. A hot CPI print often lifts real yields and pushes gold down. On a trading horizon, gold is a negative-real-yield hedge, not an inflation hedge. The full ranking is in what moves gold, and real yields and gold explains the mechanism.
The Fed, the dollar and safe havens
The Fed moves real yields, and real yields move gold. A hawkish Fed means gold down. A dovish Fed means gold up. See how the Fed moves gold.
Gold is priced in dollars, so a stronger dollar usually pressures it. In acute crises both can rise together, so ask why the dollar is moving first. See the dollar index and gold. In a genuine crisis, safe-haven demand overrides the other drivers. See is gold a safe haven.
Contract size and costs
For most brokers one standard lot is 100 troy ounces, so a $1.00 move equals $100 per lot. The word pip is defined inconsistently on gold. Work in dollars of price movement and check your broker's specification.
Lots = Risk$ ÷ (Stop in $ × 100). On a $10,000 account risking 1% with a $10.60 stop, that gives 0.09 lots. Spreads widen sharply around CPI, NFP and FOMC releases, and swap is frequently negative on both sides. See gold futures, ETFs and physical gold.
Sessions and news
The London/New York overlap, 12:00–16:00 UTC, has peak liquidity and the tightest spreads. The London open, 07:00–09:00 UTC, often sweeps the Asian session range.
CPI and NFP release at 08:30 New York time: 12:30 UTC in US summer time, 13:30 UTC in winter. The FOMC statement comes at 14:00 New York time (18:00 UTC in summer, 19:00 in winter), and the press conference 30 minutes later. In the hour from release, gold's range ran 4.2× normal for the FOMC statement, 2.3× for NFP and 1.9× for CPI (2016–2026). Do not hold through them unless you have backtested a news strategy. See gold trading sessions.
Technical execution
Analyse gold on H4 and daily. Execute on H1 or M15. Gold routinely pierces a level by $3–6 before reversing, so a stop one dollar beyond an obvious level feeds the sweep. Place it 0.3–0.5 × ATR beyond. On a sweep, the close back inside is the signal, not the wick. See liquidity and market structure.
We tested twelve classic concepts on 17 years of 15-minute gold. Next-hour hit rates were 46.1% for order blocks and 46.7% for fair value gaps. None cleared the 60.7% bar. See order blocks explained. Scalping is a poor fit at retail spreads. See scalping versus swing.
Risk and predictions
Gold changes the size of every error. Halve your risk to 0.5% for your first fifty gold trades. Reduce size or close before weekends during geopolitical tension, because gaps jump stops.
On 4,562 weekday sessions, a 3σ move came on 2.2% of days against 0.27% for the bell curve. Do not trade from a forecast. Ask which conditions would make gold rise, and size so being wrong costs 1%. See risk-reward and what we learned testing gold methods.
Questions
Why is gold falling when inflation is high?
Hot inflation raises nominal yields faster than inflation expectations. Real yields rise, and gold falls.
Is XAUUSD good for beginners?
No. Its daily range is routinely 2–3× EUR/USD's in percentage terms, which amplifies every sizing error.
70–80% of retail investor accounts lose money trading CFDs. This page is education, not advice. All trade examples are constructed composites.
