THE CALENDAR GOLD ACTUALLY TRADES OFF.

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Release times and figures come from the published economic calendar feed and the Federal Reserve's own announced schedule. The gold interpretation is written by the Gold Hunts desk model and cached per event — it is context, not a prediction. Ask Max about any release on this page and he will answer with the same data.

Gold has no earnings, no coupon and no yield. Its price is therefore a function of what else money can earn and how safe that alternative feels. Every economic release on this calendar matters only to the extent it changes one of four things: the expected path of US interest rates, the real (inflation-adjusted) yield on Treasuries, the dollar, or the market's appetite for risk. That is the whole transmission chain, and it is why two releases with the same headline importance can produce completely different gold reactions.

The chain runs like this. A US inflation or labour figure arrives. Rate futures reprice the probability of the next Fed move within milliseconds. Treasury yields follow, and the market's inflation expectations move too — the difference between the two is the real yield. Gold is priced against that real yield. If real yields rise, holding a non-yielding metal costs more, and gold falls. If real yields fall, gold rises. The dollar move usually amplifies the same signal because gold is quoted in dollars, and only decouples when the driver is systemic fear rather than US rates.

This is the reason gold sometimes sells off on high inflation, which confuses newer traders. A hot CPI print is not read as "inflation is good for gold" — it is read as "the Fed must stay tight", which lifts real yields. The metal's medium-term inflation hedge and its short-term rate sensitivity point in opposite directions, and in the first hour after a release the rate channel wins almost every time.

The same surprise produces different gold behaviour depending on liquidity. US data at 13:30 London lands in the London–New York overlap, the deepest liquidity of the gold day. Moves there are large but relatively orderly, and the level established in the following hour often holds into the close. An FOMC decision at 19:00 London lands after the London desks have gone home, so the initial move is thinner, more prone to overshooting, and more likely to be retraced when Asia and then London re-price it the following morning.

Releases that fall during the Asian session — Chinese data, Japanese policy, Australian prints — matter to gold mainly through the dollar and through physical demand narratives. They rarely produce the vertical candles US data does, but they set the tone that London inherits, which is why the first hour of the London session reprices Asian information rather than creating its own.

Practically: check this calendar before the London open, note which of your session windows contains a tier-1 release, and decide your exposure for that window in advance. Discovering a CPI print while you are already in a position with size is the single most avoidable way to lose money in gold. See gold trading hours for the session map, and gold volatility for the ranges to expect.

• Decide before, not during. Set your exposure for the release window while the market is quiet. A decision made in the two seconds after a print is not a decision.
• Assume the spread triples. Gold spreads widen through the release and stops sitting inside that widening get taken at prices the chart never shows. Give the stop room or take the position off.
• Let the first candle close. The initial spike is positioning being flushed out. The second move, once liquidity returns, is the one carrying information.
• Halve size on FOMC days. Two events, 30 minutes apart, that can point in opposite directions. Treat the statement and the press conference as one combined event.
• Log the reaction. The value of a calendar compounds only if you record how gold actually reacted against what you expected. That is what the gold trade journal is for.

Scheduled release times, forecasts, previous values and actuals are pulled hourly from the published economic calendar feed, and re-checked shortly after each release so the actual figure lands quickly. FOMC decision dates come from the Federal Reserve's own announced schedule, and monthly non-farm payroll dates from the fixed first-Friday release convention. Everything is stored in UTC and rendered in London time. Historical prints behind each series are available on gold macro.