GHX-10 — VOLATILITY COMPRESSION BREAK

This model monitors volatility metrics to identify compression, then positions for the expansion that typically follows extended low-volatility periods.

• It measures short-term quiet in gold from completed 15-minute candles — how far price is ranging, how wide its usual spread of prices has become, and how far it is travelling on average — and compares all three against a long run of recent readings rather than against a feeling.
• When a short run of candles is quiet enough on every measure at once, the high and low of that run are recorded as a zone and then left alone. The zone is never redrawn, widened or improved later.
• A quiet zone is not a direction. It gives no view on which way price will leave, so there is no position before the move, no order sitting on both sides and no anticipated direction.
• Only the first meaningful move out of the recorded zone counts. It must open inside the zone, travel decisively, and close beyond the boundary while holding most of its own move.
• The very next candle has to confirm that move: carry it further, stay clear of the boundary it just left, close with conviction, and not overrun so far that nothing is left. A later candle cannot rescue a failed one.
• The move also has to clear the range the previous hours were already trading in. Leaving a small zone while still inside a bigger one is not an expansion.
• Each quiet zone gives one opportunity only. A failed break, an ambiguous candle that reaches out of both sides, or a zone that simply expands from the inside all finish that opportunity — and price has to become genuinely active again, then form a wholly new quiet run, before anything is considered there again.
• Every trade carries a stop beyond the far side of the recorded zone and a target set from the width of that zone, both fixed before the order is sent. If the confirmation arrives too far from the zone to leave enough reward against that risk, the trade is skipped rather than the stop or target being moved to make it fit.
• Entry is valid only for a short window after that candle closes, at a fresh executable price, and only while the spread and the distance moved since the close are both inside what it accepts.
• One position at a time. No averaging down, no adding to a winner, no part exit, no re-entry on a retest and no reversal on the same zone.
• It closes if price completes a candle back inside the recorded zone, if the move stalls without progress shortly after entry, ahead of a major scheduled announcement, at the next verified trading break, and in any case within a fixed time of the fill. Once it is a full unit of risk ahead on verified prices, protection is tightened behind price and never loosened.
• This version is in demonstration research. Its behaviour has been checked against recorded gold candles and reproducible worked examples; its performance is not established.

• Measures how quiet the last eight 15-minute candles are against a long recent baseline, and records the zone before anything happens.
• Judges the first meaningful move out of that zone, and requires the very next candle to confirm it.
• Takes one opportunity per zone, whether it works or not, and skips a confirmation that arrives too far away to leave room.

The method itself is documented in full in XAU session breakout. It explains the wider trading idea, its risks and the conditions that can invalidate it.

Performs well after extended quiet periods when volatility is mean-reverting. Works when compression precedes genuine breakouts.

• Quiet pre-event coils that resolve sharply.
• Late Asian hours into the London open.
• After a tight pause near a level the market is watching.

The direction of the expansion is uncertain. False expansions that quickly reverse can cause losses, and timing the breakout is challenging.

• Quiet periods that simply continue, where it does nothing for days.
• Moves that leave the zone and snap straight back inside it.
• Thin holiday sessions where the quiet reading itself is misleading.

No model is right about gold all of the time. When available, it will act only while you leave it switched on, on an account you choose and within the limits you set.

• Risk per trade, as a percentage of the account or a cash amount.
• Daily loss limit — once hit, no new entries for the rest of the London trading day.
• Maximum open positions on gold at any one time.
• Sessions it may trade, and whether high-impact news blocks new entries.

Every order still passes the same pre-trade checks as a trade you place by hand. Reducing or closing risk is never blocked.

No demonstration trades published on this model yet. The record begins with its first closed forward-test trade.

No closed gold trades have been recorded for this model in that period.

Scope: XAUUSD only, closed trades only, grouped by London trading day, across Gold Hunts practice and real-money accounts. Cash outcomes are deliberately not published, because they depend on account size, lot size and leverage. Older rows do not always record whether the account was real or practice.

Volatility Compression Break trades a method Gold Hunts has already documented in full. These 7 pieces cover the rules, the sessions, the failure modes, the risk arithmetic and worked examples on XAUUSD.

• XAU session breakout: the full method

  The complete XAUUSD session breakout playbook: how the Asian range sets the levels, the London open mechanic, entry checklist, invalidation, expansion targets, two worked gold trades and how to journal it.

• THE SESSIONS THIS SETUP ACTUALLY NEEDS

  Hour-by-hour XAUUSD behaviour for the session breakout: Asian range building, the London expansion, the New York overlap, day-of-week effects, DST handling and the windows to avoid.

• WHEN THE GOLD BREAKOUT FAILS

  Why XAUUSD session breakouts fail: no volume expansion, an overnight range that was already the day, pre-data drift, rollover fakes, sweep-shaped traps and range-bound regimes — plus early degradation signals.

• SIZING THE GOLD BREAKOUT

  Position sizing for XAUUSD session breakouts on the 100-ounce contract, ATR-based stop placement, correlation risk across XAU crosses, daily loss discipline and prop-firm constraints.

• THE HEAD GAME OF THE RANGE BREAK

  The specific mental failure modes the session breakout produces on gold: oversizing a clean-looking range break, chasing after missing the 07:00 UTC trigger, revenge re-entry after a failed break, and refusing to stand down on FOMC days.

• JOURNALING THE SESSION BREAKOUT PROPERLY

  The exact fields, tags and screenshots to capture for the XAU session breakout, the metrics that reveal edge decay by session hour, and a walkthrough using the Gold Hunts journal with MT5 sync and session attribution.

• THREE TRADES, ANNOTATED IN FULL

  Three fully annotated XAUUSD session breakout trades — a clean London-open win, a valid loss that followed every rule, and a trade that should never have been taken — with entries, dollar stops, lot sizing and post-trade review.

• Market Structure Break & Retest — Patient entries after a confirmed break of structure, on the retest.
• Failed Breakout Reversal — Trades the trap when a gold breakout gives the level straight back.
• Breakout Expansion — Trades gold breaking cleanly through a level that mattered.
• Consolidation Expansion — Trades expansion out of prolonged sideways gold action.
• Opening Range Break — Trades the break of the session opening range.

See all twenty gold models