XAU/USD · Gold price
XAU/USD gold price today — chart, news and bias
XAU/USD is the gold price quoted in US dollars — one troy ounce of gold measured in dollars. Of every input that moves it, the two that matter most day to day are US interest-rate expectations and the direction of the dollar, so this page reads those first and then puts a Gold chart and the US releases that matter next to them.
Live overview
Gold price, DXY and yields
The last Gold quote, daily change, session high and low, plus the US 2-year and 10-year yields and the dollar index — each with its source and timestamp.
Open the overview →Chart
XAU/USD chart, M5 to daily
An interactive TradingView chart on the OANDA XAU/USD symbol. Switch between M5, M15, H1, H4 and Daily, and add moving averages and drawn levels.
Open the gold chart →Calendar
US events that move Gold
CPI, Core CPI, PCE, NFP, PPI and FOMC dates in South African time, with forecast, previous and published actual figures from the provider.
Open the calendar →Gold price drivers
What actually moves the XAU/USD gold price
Real interest rates
Gold pays no interest, so the opportunity cost of holding it is set by inflation-adjusted yields. When US real yields rise, Gold usually gets harder to hold; when they fall, it usually gets easier.
The US dollar
Gold is priced in dollars, so a stronger dollar tends to press on the gold price and a weaker dollar tends to lift it. The DXY tracks the dollar against its major peers.
Federal Reserve policy
Expectations for the Fed funds rate — how fast, how far, and whether cuts are coming — move the whole chain above. That is why CPI, PCE, payrolls and FOMC decisions matter more than any single chart level.
Risk demand and positioning
Safe-haven flows and crowded positioning can override the macro picture for a while. A strong news reaction is not automatically a trend, which is why the terminal asks for structure to confirm before treating a move as tradeable.
Gold trading strategy
A gold trading strategy built for news days
Most of the volatility in XAU/USD arrives in the first minutes after a US release. The approach here is to decide direction before the event and only enter after it, using the higher timeframes for bias and the lower one for confirmation.
- 01
H1
Set the bias from the higher timeframe — trend, major structure and the levels that matter.
- 02
M15
Map market structure: swing highs and lows, support and resistance, supply and demand zones, and where liquidity sits.
- 03
Economic context
Read what the US release is expected to do to the Fed path, then check whether yields and the dollar are moving the way the news implies.
- 04
M5
Wait for the post-release impulse, a break of structure or change of character, then a pullback into a higher low (buys) or lower high (sells) — not the first candle.
Around CPI and PCE
Watch for a roughly 5-point test or retest as a planning reference, and size expectations against the typical 30–60 point CPI range and 30 point PCE range — never assume a release delivers that move.
Risk management
Size every trade from the account balance and a fixed risk percentage, with the stop beyond the level that invalidates the idea. Protecting capital comes before catching the move.
Common questions
What is XAU/USD?
XAU is the ISO currency code for one troy ounce of gold, and USD is the US dollar. XAU/USD is therefore the price of one ounce of gold in dollars — the most widely followed gold quote in the world, and the one retail gold traders usually work with.
What time do US releases print in South Africa?
Most US data — CPI, PCE, payrolls — publishes at 14:30 SAST, with some releases at other times in the afternoon. FOMC decisions publish at 20:00 SAST with the press conference at 20:30, shifting by an hour when US daylight saving changes. The calendar in this terminal converts every event to South African time automatically.
Can the gold price be predicted?
No. Directional views are interpretations of data and price action, not forecasts. What can be done is to prepare before an event, define what would confirm or invalidate an idea, and size the risk accordingly.
What is the best timeframe for gold trading?
There is no single answer, but a common structure is to set bias on H1, study market structure on M15, and look for confirmation on M5. Using one timeframe alone usually means trading noise.
Figures on the linked pages come from their providers and carry a timestamp. Where a value cannot be verified it is shown blank, never estimated. The strategy above is a planning framework, not a signal service and not personalised financial advice.