Business

XAUUSD: Understanding & Trading Tips

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Original article Keuntungan Trading XAUUSD

Gold has been a traded commodity for thousands of years. Even though paper money/cash has been serving as a medium of exchange for some time, gold has not lost its position and popularity, both as a “safe haven” asset and as a trading instrument.

Check out the following article to find out more about trading gold on the Forex market, and to increase your profits!

Definition

XAUUSD is a trading method for buying and selling gold and US dollars.

In the Forex market, gold is a form of currency with the code “XAU” and can only be traded against the US dollar (USD). This one precious metal is often known as a “safe-haven” asset, where its role lies in the potential to increase its value during volatile situations and economic uncertainty.

By exchanging USD for gold and vice versa, traders are basically predicting price movements for these precious metals and looking to profit from the difference.

Quite a few Forex brokers like Finex offer large leverage which allows you to get satisfactory returns even if the amount of funds invested is relatively small.

XAUUSD Trading Advantages

Gold is one of the best assets you can trade, either short term or long term – depending on your trading style. In general, the advantages of trading XAUUSD are:

1. As Long Term Protection

The longer the supply of gold will decrease because of its nature as a non-renewable metal. Therefore, the constant value of gold will tend to increase in the long term.

2. Easy to Predict

The global economic crisis is the best moment to buy gold. Pretty predictable, right? If the economic or world situation is getting worse, just buy gold because the price will most likely increase.

Best Time to Trade XAUUSD

XAUUSD is traded on the Forex market which is open from Monday to Friday, 24 hours a day. This allows traders to freely choose when it is best to stare at the screen to strategize and place orders.

Quite similar to other instruments, the best time to trade XAUUSD is during active market hours, when large market participants are trading this asset heavily. XAUUSD’s most active trading hours were noted during the North American zone trading session, then eased slightly during the European zone session.

The following is a schedule of Forex trading hours based on Jakarta time:

 

Zone

 

 

Open

 

Close

Asia 08:00 15:00
Eropa 16:00 24:00
Amerika 21:00 05:00
Pasifik 06:00 14:00

We can also encounter moments of high XAUUSD trading volume when volatility is increasing, high liquidity, which results in tight spreads. We can find out from the fundamental news. This is also suspected to be one of the reasons why gold is a popular asset for fundamental traders.

Factors Influencing XAUUSD

Like other Forex pairs, the movement of XAUUSD is also influenced by fundamental news. Starting from the general election of a country, to armed conflict can push up the price of gold. It is very important for traders to understand the effect certain events have on the price of precious metals.

Since gold has a negative correlation with the USD, basically any economic release that can trigger a change in the USD price should be closely monitored by XAUUSD traders. If you don’t want to miss the surge in gold prices, you should follow the following releases:

• Inflation report
High inflation is in line with rising gold prices.

• The Fed’s interest rate decision
The price of gold tends to rise when interest rates decrease.

• Non-farm payroll
Good labor market data supports the USD positively, and vice versa. Since a decline in the USD almost always means an increase in the price of gold, poor employment data is bullish for the price of gold.

How much influence does the NFP have on the USD and gold?

Gold still performs its function as a hedge against many of the dynamics a currency may experience. Being a heavily traded pair, XAUUSD has enough trading volume and volatility to offer plenty of opportunities to profit through intraday trading. In order to maximize XAUUSD, traders should focus on the most active trading hours, which are usually filled with high trading volume.

You should also not ignore fundamental news that can trigger significant changes in the price of gold which can bring additional opportunities for high profit potential in the market, such as inflation reports, consumer price index (CPI), nonfarm payrolls, FOMC meetings, etc.

Added XAUUSD in MT4

Make sure you work with a Forex broker who supports you for trading gold, such as Finex. After that, here are the steps to add XAUUSD in MT4:
1. Log in to your MetaTrader account.
2. Open ‘Market Watch’ menu by selecting it from the View menu, clicking on its icon in the toolbar, or simply pressing CTRL + M.
3. Right-click on the Market Watch menu, and select “Symbols” from the menu that appears.
4. After finding XAUUSD, select it and click the “Show” button at the top right side of the window.

After clicking “Show”, you can go ahead and click the “Close” button to close the Symbols window. Now, the gold-vs-dollar (XAUUSD) symbol will be visible on Market Watch.

Place a XAUUSD Buy/Sell Order

1. Сlick on XAUUSD on your Market Watch panel will be able to see the corresponding chart on the right.
2. Double-click on the XAUUSD symbol to open the Order broker window.
3. On the Order window add the amount you want to buy or sell.
4. Select the “Sell by Market” or “Buy by Market” buttons

Let’s trade XAUUSD!

About the author

Saman Iqbal

Saman is a law student. She enjoys writing about tech, politics and the world in general. She's an avid reader and writes fictional prose in her free time.







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