Are these gold news momentum examples real trades?

No. They are illustrative scenarios built on a stated £40,000 account and round-number gold prices to demonstrate sizing, spread and slippage mechanics. They are provided for education only and no results are implied.

Why does the FOMC example count as a valid loss rather than a mistake?

Every checklist item available at the time of entry was satisfied — confirmed direction, a held pullback, a structural stop, correct sizing. The loss came from a second, later event (the press conference) that the setup does not and cannot predict, which is a known limitation rather than an execution error.

Why is the pre-NFP trade treated differently from the other two?

It was entered before the release, with no confirmed direction and an arbitrary rather than structural stop. It never met the setup's entry criteria, so its loss says nothing about the strategy's edge and should be logged as a rule violation, not blended into the strategy's win/loss record.

How much did slippage and spread cost in the losing examples?

The FOMC example lost roughly $43 above its planned risk to slippage on the stop fill, about 22% of the planned amount. The pre-NFP example lost roughly $118 above plan to spread and slippage combined, about 60% of the planned risk, reflecting how much worse execution is when a trade is taken outside the checklist's protected windows.

What lot size would a 0.5%-risk trader use on a $6–$10 gold stop?

On a £40,000 account risking 0.5% (£200), a $6.30 stop sizes to roughly 0.32 lots and a $10.00 stop to roughly 0.20 lots, since lot size is risk in currency divided by stop distance in dollars multiplied by $100 per lot.

Gold News Momentum: Three Worked XAUUSD Trades

Three annotated XAUUSD news trades: a soft-CPI long that followed the checklist and closed at roughly 2.7R, a valid FOMC-decision short that was structurally correct but lost to the press conference reversal, and a pre-NFP directional guess that should never have been entered and lost more than its planned risk to slippage.

Three illustrative XAUUSD news-momentum trades on a £40,000 account risking 0.5% (£200): a soft-CPI long entered on a held pullback with a $6.30 stop that closed around +2.7R, a structurally valid FOMC-decision short reversed by the press conference thirty minutes later for around -1.2R, and a pre-NFP directional guess entered before the release with an arbitrary 0.00 stop that lost roughly -1.6R after heavy slippage.

Execution costs scaled sharply with how far outside the checklist each trade sat: the compliant win paid about 9% of planned risk in spread and slippage, the compliant loss paid about 22%, and the rule-violating pre-release guess paid roughly 60%, illustrating why entry timing and calendar discipline are the dominant variables in this setup's cost structure.

The pre-release guess is logged separately from the two checklist-compliant trades because it never met the setup's entry criteria — no confirmed post-release direction and no structural stop — so blending its loss into the strategy's record would misstate whether news momentum itself has an edge.