How is lot size calculated for a gold mean-reversion trade?

Cash risk divided by the stop distance in dollars per ounce, then divided by $100, the value of a $1.00 move on 1.00 lot. On a £150 risk budget and a $4.60 stop, that is £150 ÷ ($4.60 × $100), or roughly 0.32 lots.

Can a gold reversion trade pass every checklist item and still lose?

Yes. In the second worked example, regime, stretch, volume and the rejection candle all passed, and the trade still lost because an unscheduled headline moved the VWAP anchor itself mid-trade. That is filed as a valid loss, not a process failure.

Why did the third worked example fail despite having the largest extension of the three trades?

Because extension size only measures distance from the anchor — it says nothing about whether the session is rotational. The third trade had the biggest stretch of the three but occurred on a trend day with zero VWAP crosses and expanding volume, both of which should have voided the setup before entry.

Should the stretch trigger ever be checked before the regime filter?

No. A trend day satisfies the stretch trigger repeatedly and often more dramatically than a rotational session does, so checking stretch first leads to fading the strongest moves of the month. Regime is checked first for exactly this reason.

How should I journal a mean-reversion loss caused by the anchor moving mid-trade?

Tag it as a valid loss with a note on the cause — an anchor-relocation event, distinct from a stopped-out excursion that simply failed to revert. Mixing this cause with regime-filter violations in the same "loss" category hides which risk actually needs managing.

What extension size gave the best result across the three examples?

The clean win came from a 2.39 ATR extension in a rotational session, close to the 2.31 ATR extension used in the wider hub-page example — both inside the 2.0 to 2.5 ATR trigger band the setup calls for once regime has already been confirmed as rotational.

Three Worked Gold Mean Reversion Trades — XAUUSD Examples

Three annotated XAUUSD reversion trades share one account and sizing method: a clean win that faded a 2.4 ATR VWAP stretch on declining volume back to the anchor, a valid loss where every check passed and the anchor itself moved before price arrived, and a trade that should never have been taken because the regime was already directional when the stretch trigger fired.

Three fully worked XAUUSD mean-reversion trades, sized from a shared £30,000 account risking 0.5% (£150) per trade in a representative $4,300–$4,600 range, show the difference between a checklist-compliant win, a checklist-compliant loss and a trade that violated the setup's own regime and volume filters despite the largest extension of the three.

The clean win faded a 2.39 ATR extension above session VWAP on declining push-candle volume inside a confirmed rotational session, closing in thirty-seven minutes for +1.13R. The valid loss passed every pre-entry check, including the calendar check, and lost only because an unscheduled headline relocated the anchor itself mid-trade — a cost the time stop correctly capped near one unit.

The third trade fired on a $23.40, 2.90 ATR extension — the largest of the three — during a confirmed trend day with zero VWAP crosses and expanding volume on the push candles, both of which should have voided the setup before the rejection candle was even evaluated, illustrating why extension size alone is a trigger condition rather than a quality signal.