Gold chart of the day: one chart, one concept

How the chart of the day is made

The chart is the last 60 one-hour bars of COMEX gold futures before 00:00 UTC on the day, which covers the latest two to three trading sessions. It is drawn by the site from the bars themselves, so every candle and every price on the page comes from the data. A session runs from the reopen at 22:00 or 23:00 UTC to the close the next evening, which is why the reopen bar belongs to the next day.

Eight concepts take turns. The date decides which concept is tried first; its rule is run on the chart, and if the pattern is not there the next concept is tried. The “average hourly range” used by several rules is the mean of high minus low over the 60 bars. These are the rules:

1. Support and resistance. Find every swing high and swing low (a bar whose high, or low, is beyond the 3 bars on each side). Group swing points that lie within half an average hourly range of each other and are at least 5 bars apart. The group with the most touches (at least 2; ties go to the most recent) is the zone, drawn from its lowest to its highest touch.
2. Prior-day high and low. Sessions run from the reopen at 22:00 or 23:00 UTC to the close the next evening. The previous session's highest high and lowest low are drawn as lines, and the latest session's bars are checked against them: a break is a high above the prior high or a low below the prior low; a hold beyond it is a close outside the line.
3. Fair value gap. For every three consecutive hourly bars: a bullish gap is when bar 1's high is below bar 3's low; a bearish gap is when bar 1's low is above bar 3's high. The gap must be at least 0.3 of an average hourly range. The largest gap on the chart is shown, then later bars are checked to see whether price came back into it.
4. Order block. A bullish order block is a down bar (close below open) where the next bar closes above its high and the best close of the next 3 bars is at least one average hourly range above that high. A bearish one is the mirror image. The block with the largest move away from it is shown, from its low to its high, and later bars are checked for a return into it.
5. Liquidity sweep. A swing high (a high above the 3 bars on each side) that no later bar has exceeded is a resting level. A bearish sweep is a bar whose high goes above that level but which closes back below it; a bullish sweep is the mirror image at a swing low. The most recent sweep on the chart is shown, with what the next 6 bars did.
6. Trend structure. Find the swing highs and lows (beyond the 3 bars on each side). Compare the last two swing highs and the last two swing lows: both higher = uptrend structure, both lower = downtrend structure. Mixed swings mean no clear structure, and the concept is skipped.
7. Range and breakout. A range is at least 10 consecutive hourly bars whose highest high and lowest low are no more than 2 average hourly ranges apart (the longest such stretch, scanning forward). A breakout is the first later bar that closes above the range high or below the range low. The most recent range on the chart is shown.
8. Moving-average context. The 20 and 50-bar simple moving averages of the hourly closes (computed with the bars before the chart too). The page reports where the last close sits against both, whether the 20 is above the 50, how many times the close crossed the 20 on the chart and the 20's slope over its last 10 bars.

The rules are deliberately simple, so you can check every one on the chart by eye. Real traders add judgement, a higher timeframe and risk management on top. For the levels the site calculates for the current session, see the daily XAUUSD analysis; for the week, the weekly gold cheat sheet.

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