XAUUSD scalping strategy for automated gold trading

Gold moves faster per point than major forex pairs and its spread can widen from 20 points to over 100 points around news. A scalping robot that ignores spread will see its profits eaten by execution costs.

The fix is a spread filter plus a volatility check: only trade when the spread is below a fixed threshold and the recent ATR shows the market is moving cleanly.

The best window is the London-New York overlap (roughly 13:00-17:00 UTC). This is when liquidity is deepest, spreads are tightest and directional moves are most reliable.

Avoid the Asian session unless your broker consistently offers tight gold spreads then. Most robots lose money during low-volume hours because small moves get stopped out by noise.

A robust XAUUSD scalping robot uses at least two timeframes: a higher timeframe for trend direction and a lower timeframe for entry timing. Trades are only taken in the direction of the higher timeframe bias.

Exits should combine a fixed target, a trailing stop and a time-based close. Staying in a scalp too long turns a small winner into a random outcome.

Risk no more than 0.5-1% of the account per scalp. With gold's volatility, a run of three or four losses is normal; the position size must keep that run survivable.

Set a daily loss limit that stops trading once hit. Chasing losses with tighter stops or bigger lots is the fastest way to blow up a scalping account.

Use "every tick based on real ticks" in MT5, at least 12 months of data and your broker's actual spread. Look at the profit factor, maximum drawdown and consecutive losses before the total profit.

A curve with a profit factor above 1.3 and a max drawdown under 10% is a better sign than a high return with deep drawdowns.