A session's range is the distance from its lowest price to its highest, in pips. A gold pip is $0.10 of price, so 100 pips is a $10 move. Each session here is its city's business hours, Monday to Friday, measured on one-minute prices from 26 March to 25 September 2026. How far gold moved in a whole day, by weekday and by month, is in gold's average daily range; this page splits the same sample by session.
Gold's range in each session
| Session | Median pips | Price | UK hours | Sessions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | 513.1 | $51 | 22:00 to 07:00 | 129 |
| Tokyo | 564.1 | $56 | 01:00 to 10:00 | 130 |
| London | 607.8 | $61 | 08:00 to 17:00 | 131 |
| New York | 590.2 | $59 | 13:00 to 22:00 | 129 |
| Overlap | 506.2 | $51 | 13:00 to 17:00 | 131 |
The UK hours are British Summer Time, which began on 29 March, three days into the sample. Each session is nine hours long and the overlap, when London and New York are both open, is four, so the sessions share hours and do not add up to a day. Gold's daily break, 22:00 to 23:00 UK, falls inside Sydney's hours, so gold traded eight of them; before Sydney's clock change on 5 April, its hours were 21:00 to 06:00 UK.
The median is the middle session of all those counted, so one wild session barely moves it. The averages came out higher in all five: 582.1 pips in Sydney, 616.9 in Tokyo, 691.2 in London, 696.6 in New York and 567.9 in the overlap.
London had the widest median and New York the next. Sydney's 513.1 pips was the narrowest of the four full sessions, and the overlap, at 506.2, covered 83% of London's nine-hour median in four hours.
Quiet and busy sessions
How far apart each session's quiet and busy days were, in pips: the middle half of the sessions, then the quietest and busiest tenth.
- Sydney: half between 389.8 and 682.9; one in ten under 338.8, one in ten over 911.4.
- Tokyo: half between 443.0 and 746.6; one in ten under 369.0, one in ten over 871.9.
- London: half between 477.0 and 863.0; one in ten under 427.8, one in ten over 1,060.5.
- New York: half between 455.0 and 825.6; one in ten under 393.4, one in ten over 1,194.1.
- Overlap: half between 400.6 and 671.6; one in ten under 323.4, one in ten over 861.7.
London's quiet sessions were the widest of the five: one in ten covered less than 427.8 pips, about $43. New York had the bigger busy sessions: one in ten covered more than 1,194.1 pips, about $119, and its average was the highest of the five. So London had the wider typical session and New York the wider busy one.
The widest single sessions came in Asian hours: 2,451.2 pips in Tokyo and 2,246.1 in Sydney, against 1,849.0 in New York and 1,560.4 in London. The narrowest were 218.7 pips in the overlap and 221.1 in Sydney.
Asian hours are not quiet on gold
Tokyo's median, 564.1 pips, was 93% of London's 607.8. On EUR/USD the same Tokyo hours covered a median 27.5 pips against London's 38.0, 72% of it; the major pairs hour by hour has all six pairs we measured. Inside Tokyo's hours sits gold's 02:00 UK hour, with a median range of 248.1 pips, the third widest hour of gold's day in gold's range hour by hour.
The data is one price a minute with no bid or ask, so it says nothing about the spread a broker quotes in those hours; gold's spread at night covers that side.
The overlap: four hours, most of London's ground
The overlap, 13:00 to 17:00 UK, holds gold's two widest hours, 14:00 and 15:00, with medians of 278.2 and 252.1 pips, and 13:30 UK, when the US jobs and inflation reports are released. In those four hours the median session covered 506.2 pips, against 607.8 for London's full nine. What gold did in the minutes after each release is in gold on NFP, CPI and Fed days.
What a session's range means for a gold stop
A 500-pip stop is $50 of gold's price. In this sample it was narrower than the median range of every session, the four-hour overlap included. Nine sessions in ten covered more than 323.4 pips in the overlap and more than 427.8 in London.
That does not mean a 500-pip stop was hit in most sessions. A range runs from the session's low to its high, and a stop is reached only if the price travels that far against the entry. What the range does show is how much room the market used: a stop well inside a session's typical range sits inside ordinary movement for that session.
The stop and the lot size set the risk, not the session: lots = money at risk ÷ (stop in pips × $10 per pip per lot). The gold lot size calculator does the sum from a signal's entry and stop, and our results page lists every closed gold signal with its entry, stop and outcome.
The winter clock
The sample ends on 25 September, before the October and November clock changes. The UK moved to GMT on 25 October 2026 and New York to standard time on 1 November, while Sydney moved to summer time on 4 October, so on a UK clock the Asian sessions now start earlier than the table shows. The forex market hours tool shows each session on your own clock.
Sources
One-minute prices: GetData free sample, MIT licence, 26 March to 25 September 2026. Each session is its centre's local business hours, Monday to Friday: Sydney 07:00 to 16:00, Tokyo 09:00 to 18:00, London 08:00 to 17:00 and New York 08:00 to 17:00, local time, with the overlap 13:00 to 17:00 UK. A session counts when at least 80% of its minutes have a price, which leaves 129 to 131 sessions each. 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. Typical values are medians.
The London median here, 607.8 pips over 131 weekdays, differs by 0.2 pips from the 607.6 in gold's overnight range and the London session, which measures London's hours inside 130 full trading days.
- GetData XAU/USD one-minute sample and EUR/USD one-minute sample, MIT licence
- US release times: the Bureau of Labor Statistics archives for the jobs report and the inflation report, 8:30 a.m. New York time
- The method, and the same figures for other markets: the markets page and XAU/USD
Every closed signal is on the record
The results page lists each closed VIP signal with its entry, stop, targets and outcome, stops included.
Ready to join? Compare the VIP plans: £89 a month, or £540 paid once a year.