What is gold volatility?

What it means

We measured a median daily range of $76 over a year of gold bars — about 1.8% of price, or $7,600 per standard lot. The tenth percentile was $26 and the ninetieth was $163, so the gap between a quiet day and a violent one is more than sixfold. Position sizing carried over from FX consistently over-sizes gold for exactly this reason.

Why it matters

Volatility is also strongly session-dependent. The Asian session is typically quiet, London brings the first expansion, and the US session — particularly around economic releases — produces the largest moves. A strategy tested across all hours is being measured on several different markets averaged together.

What this changes in practice

The practical response is to scale stops to ATR rather than fixing them in dollars, and to restrict trading to the sessions the strategy was actually built for. Ours trades a defined window rather than around the clock for exactly this reason — see gold trading sessions.