Average daily range of the major pairs and gold in 2026

Daily range is the distance from a day's high to its low, and the average daily range is that distance averaged over many days. The figures below cover every full trading day in six months of one-minute prices: 131 days for the six currency pairs and 130 for gold and silver. The table gives the median day, which is the typical one, and the average day, which a few very large days pull upwards, each in pips and as a percentage of price.

Eight markets in one table

Gold's median day of 985.8 pips is about $99 of price, because a gold pip is $0.10, and its average day of 1,051.2 pips is about $105. Silver's median of 281.1 pips is about $2.81, at $0.01 a pip.

The average sits above the median on all eight markets, because a handful of large days lift an average and barely move a median. USD/JPY has the widest gap for its size, an average day of 99.0 pips against a median of 74.3, a third higher; its largest day in the sample covered 577.1 pips.

NZD/USD is not in the table. The publisher of the sample has no NZD/USD file, so we have no range figures for it, although our signals do trade it.

Pips do not compare across pairs

A pip is a different amount on each market: 0.0001 on EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/CAD and USD/CHF, 0.01 on USD/JPY, $0.10 on gold and $0.01 on silver. So USD/JPY's median of 74.3 pips and EUR/USD's 52.4 are not the same kind of number. Measured against price, the two were almost level: 0.46% for USD/JPY and 0.45% for EUR/USD on a median day.

On that measure the six pairs sit close together, from 0.39% for USD/CAD to 0.63% for AUD/USD and USD/CHF. Gold's median day was 2.17% of its price, about five times EUR/USD's, and silver's was 4.18%.

For money, the pip count is what matters. For a dollar account a pip is worth a fixed $10 per standard lot on EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD and gold alike, as the EUR/USD pip value guide sets out, so at the same lot size a move the size of a median gold day is worth about nineteen times a move the size of a median EUR/USD day. The gold daily range figures look at gold on its own.

The quietest and busiest weekday

Each weekday holds 26 or 27 days of the sample. Monday includes Sunday evening, because a trading day here starts at 17:00 New York, 22:00 UK, on the evening before.

Tuesday was the quietest weekday on three of the six pairs, and Wednesday or Thursday the busiest on all six. The biggest gap between weekdays was on USD/JPY, whose Thursday median of 99.6 pips was more than 20 pips above any other weekday. All four Federal Reserve decisions in the sample came on a Wednesday and five of the six US jobs reports on a Friday, so release days sit inside these figures. With 26 or 27 days for each weekday, a few large days can shift a median, so read the table as a description of these six months, not a timetable.

What a daily range tells a signal trader

The daily range gives you a way to check a stop against an ordinary day. A 25 pip stop on EUR/USD is a little under half of the median day of 52.4 pips. On a quiet day it is most of the day's range: one day in ten covered 31.9 pips or less. On a busy day it is under a third of it: one day in ten covered 89.9 pips or more.

That comparison is not a rule for placing stops. The stop comes from the trade itself; the range only shows how much room it leaves compared with an ordinary day. A stop that is small against the range can be reached by ordinary movement, and a wide one costs more per lot when it is hit, so it needs a smaller position for the same risk. How much to risk per trade covers choosing the risk, and the lot size calculator turns it and the stop into a lot size.

A daily range also covers the whole day, and a trade open for a few hours sees only part of it. When each pair moves, hour by hour breaks the day into UK hours.

Our signals carry a stop from the first message, so you can hold it against these ranges before you enter; the free channel posts a selection of them.

Where the numbers come from

One-minute prices: GetData free sample, MIT licence, 26 March to 25 September 2026.

A trading day runs from 17:00 to 17:00 New York time, normally 22:00 to 22:00 UK, and is named by the date it ends on. We kept every day with at least 80% of a normal day's one-minute bars: 131 days for the forex pairs and 130 for gold and silver, which have almost no prices on Good Friday, 3 April. The first day, 26 March, is cut short by the start of the sample and left out. The first minute after each weekend, daily break or other pause of more than five minutes is left out of highs and lows, because its opening price is carried over from before the pause.

Range is the day's high minus its low, in pips (gold 0.10, silver 0.01, USD/JPY 0.01, the other pairs 0.0001, as in our calculators) and as a percentage of price, which is the day's range over the previous day's close. Typical means the median, and averages are labelled as averages. The method and the checks run on the data are on the markets page.