Why gold's spread jumps at night, and what it does to your stop

The gold spread jumps at night because of the daily break. Around the break at 17:00 New York time, 22:00 UK for most of the year, the liquidity providers that price gold roll their positions to the next day and many of them pause, so the gap between the buying and the selling price opens up in the minutes before gold stops and after it reopens. That wider gap can close a sell trade at its stop loss while the line on your chart never touches it, because the chart draws one side of the price and a sell's stop triggers on the other.

Bid, ask and spread

Every price has two sides. The bid is what you can sell at, the ask is what you can buy at, and the spread is the ask minus the bid. A buy opens at the ask and closes at the bid; a sell opens at the bid and closes at the ask, so either way a new trade starts out behind by the spread.

On gold, MT5 shows the spread in points, and one point is 0.01 of price. Ten points make one pip in the $0.10 pip convention, so a Spread column reading 25, for example, means 0.25 of price, or 2.5 pips.

Why a sell's stop can be hit when the chart never gets there

MT5 charts draw the bid price by default. For a buy that is the right line: a buy closes at the bid, so its stop loss below the price and its take profit above it trigger when the bid, the line you can see, reaches them.

A sell closes at the ask, so its stop loss above the price and its take profit below it trigger on the ask, one spread above your chart line. While the spread is narrow you barely notice. When it widens, the ask can reach your stop while the bid line stays clear of it, and the trade closes at the stop on a chart that looks clean. That is how a stop gets hit when the chart says price never got there.

Here it is with example numbers. You sell gold at an example price of 4,000.00 with the stop at 4,008.00. Just before the break the bid rises to 4,006.80 and turns down. If the spread at that moment is 1.20 (120 points, 12 pips, also an example), the ask touches 4,008.00 and your stop is hit, while the candle on your chart peaks at 4,006.80, 1.20 short of it.

The same gap works against a sell's take profit. It needs the ask to come down to the target, so the bid on your chart has to trade one spread below the target before the order fills.

How to see it on your own platform

1. Press F8, or right-click the chart and choose Properties, and tick the box that shows the ask line. A second line now runs above the bid, and the distance between the two is the spread.
2. In Market Watch, right-click, choose Columns and tick Spread. The column shows the live spread in points.
3. With no trade open, look at both in the minutes before 22:00 UK and just after the 23:00 reopen one evening, and at 13:30 on a day with US data. That shows what your own broker's gold spread does at the moments that matter, on your account type.

When the gold spread widens

• The daily break at 17:00 New York: 22:00 UK most of the year, 21:00 UK in the weeks when the UK and US clocks are out of step (25 to 31 October 2026, 14 to 27 March 2027). Liquidity providers roll their positions and many pause.
• Big data, in the minutes around the release. US data at 8:30 New York lands at 13:30 UK, or 12:30 in those weeks.
• The Sunday reopen, normally 23:00 UK, when the week's first prices come in.
• Holidays, when brokers shorten or close sessions.

How far it widens depends on the broker and the account type, so there is no general figure worth quoting; your own Spread column at those moments is the figure. The break and the reopen are set out city by city in gold market hours, and the rest of gold's day in the best time to trade gold.

What it does to a signal

Any provider's results page measures a signal from its entry to the level it reached. Your fill pays the spread on top, so your result on the same signal trails the record, and trails it further when you enter while the spread is wide.

The stop is where it bites. A tight stop on a trade held into the rollover can be taken by the spread alone, with no real move in the market behind it. On a sell, that loss arrives on a chart that never reached the level.

Pending entries follow the same rule. A sell limit fills when the bid reaches it, the line on your chart. A buy limit fills when the ask reaches it, so the chart has to trade one spread below the level first, and on a wide spread it can be touched on the chart without filling.

What to do about it

• Do not open a new gold trade in the last 30 minutes before the daily break: 21:30 to 22:00 UK most of the year, 20:30 to 21:00 in the out-of-step weeks. A trade opened then starts behind by a spread that is about to widen.
• Do not tighten a stop into the rollover. A stop pulled in just before the break is the one the spread reaches.
• Check the spread before every entry. If the Spread column is wider than you normally see on your account, wait for it to settle.
• If you hold through the break, accept that the spread can touch the stop. Widening the stop to dodge it is the costlier habit, and the stop loss guide explains why the stop stays where the signal put it.
• Trade sells with the ask line on, so a stop taken by the spread is something you can see.

Our signals and the rollover

Most of our signals are posted in the London and New York hours: in the replayed month of 24 August to 21 September 2026, the 79 resolved signals split 38 in the London session and 41 in New York. One that is still open at 22:00 UK goes through the rollover like any other trade. Our results page measures from the posted entry, so check the spread on your own account before you compare your fills with it.