Gold (XAU/USD) Average Daily Range
https://fxabsolute.com/stats/XAUUSD.json.
How much does Gold (XAU/USD) actually move in a day?
The average is 361.6 pips (0.1), but an average alone is misleading for position sizing because the distribution is skewed — a handful of violent days pull it upward. The median day is 249.8 pips (0.1), and the middle half of all days falls between 158.1 and 399.3. One day in twenty exceeds 1009.4.
The widest single day in the sample was 7710.2 pips (0.1); the quietest was 17.1. If a stop is sized off the average rather than the quartiles, roughly a quarter of days will move less than it expects and a quarter considerably more.
Which hours move, and which do not
Gold (XAU/USD) concentrates its movement into a narrow window. The busiest hour is 14:00–15:00 UTC at 130.9 pips (0.1) — the London/New York overlap — and the quietest is 04:00–05:00 UTC at 45.4. That is a 2.9× difference between the loudest and quietest hour of the same instrument.
| Hour (UTC) | Session | Avg range | Median | Closed up |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:00–01:00 UTC | Asian | 68.3 | 35.6 | 50% |
| 01:00–02:00 UTC | Asian | 95.3 | 54 | 52% |
| 02:00–03:00 UTC | Asian | 70.8 | 40.4 | 53% |
| 03:00–04:00 UTC | Asian | 55.8 | 33.3 | 48.7% |
| 04:00–05:00 UTC | Asian | 45.4 | 28.5 | 47.4% |
| 05:00–06:00 UTC | Asian | 69 | 39.8 | 52.5% |
| 06:00–07:00 UTC | Asian | 74 | 48.3 | 49.9% |
| 07:00–08:00 UTC | London | 76.1 | 54.1 | 50% |
| 08:00–09:00 UTC | London | 76.3 | 52.7 | 52.8% |
| 09:00–10:00 UTC | London | 68.3 | 46.5 | 51.1% |
| 10:00–11:00 UTC | London | 65.6 | 43.9 | 50.1% |
| 11:00–12:00 UTC | London | 71.8 | 47.3 | 52.2% |
| 12:00–13:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 103.3 | 75.1 | 50.3% |
| 13:00–14:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 130.2 | 100.8 | 50.2% |
| 14:00–15:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 130.9 | 95.6 | 50.7% |
| 15:00–16:00 UTC | London/New York overlap | 109.7 | 72.7 | 50% |
| 16:00–17:00 UTC | New York | 84 | 54.4 | 52.6% |
| 17:00–18:00 UTC | New York | 71.1 | 47 | 48.7% |
| 18:00–19:00 UTC | New York | 69.3 | 40.7 | 51.3% |
| 19:00–20:00 UTC | New York | 63.2 | 37.5 | 51.4% |
| 20:00–21:00 UTC | New York | 54 | 29.7 | 45.8% |
| 21:00–22:00 UTC | Late New York / Asian open | 50.5 | 26.1 | 46.6% |
| 22:00–23:00 UTC | Late New York / Asian open | 62.4 | 27.3 | 63.8% |
| 23:00–00:00 UTC | Late New York / Asian open | 62.7 | 26.8 | 58.8% |
The "closed up" column is a sanity check as much as anything: across a large sample most hours sit near 50%, and any hour drifting far from it is worth a second look rather than a strategy.
Does the day of the week matter?
Among full trading days, Friday is the widest at 430.4 pips (0.1); Wednesday is the narrowest at 389.4. The spread between them is 41 pips (0.1).
| Day | Avg daily range | Minutes quoted | Days sampled |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday (partial session) | 135.6 | 99 | 271 |
| Monday | 392.6 | 1,344 | 275 |
| Tuesday | 401.3 | 1,378 | 276 |
| Wednesday | 389.4 | 1,368 | 277 |
| Thursday | 418.9 | 1,363 | 275 |
| Friday | 430.4 | 1,278 | 267 |
Sunday is a partial session — the week opens late, so the file holds about 99 minutes for it against roughly 1,378 for a full weekday. Its range is not comparable to the others and it is excluded from the comparison above.
The gap nobody backtests
Between one session's close and the next session's open, Gold (XAU/USD) gaps a median of 0.27 pips (0.1), but the 95th percentile is 28.14 and the largest in the sample was 1119.37. Across a weekend the 95th percentile is 134.54. A stop sitting inside that distance did not get filled where the backtest says it did.
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Questions
What is the average daily range of XAUUSD?
361.6 pips (0.1), measured across 1,871,487 one-minute candles from 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30. The median day is 249.8 pips (0.1), which is the more useful number for sizing because the average is pulled up by outliers.
What is the most volatile hour for XAUUSD?
14:00–15:00 UTC, averaging 130.9 pips (0.1) — the London/New York overlap. The quietest is 04:00–05:00 UTC at 45.4 pips (0.1).
How wide can XAUUSD move on an extreme day?
One day in twenty exceeds 1009.4 pips (0.1). The widest day in this sample reached 7710.2 pips (0.1).
Where does this data come from?
From the same historical one-minute candles the FXAbsolute simulator replays — 1,871,487 bars covering 2021-01-03 to 2026-04-30. The computed figures are published as JSON at https://fxabsolute.com/stats/XAUUSD.json so they can be checked.