Free research · Gold (XAUUSD)

Do the trading concepts everyone teaches actually work? We tested them on gold.

FXSynapse researches trading concepts that are publicly known and traded by millions: order blocks, fair value gaps, liquidity sweeps, support and resistance and more. Each one is written down as an exact rule and tested on nine years of gold (XAUUSD) data, on every chart from 1-minute to weekly, with the broker's real spread charged on every trade. Every page says what the concept is, how we tested it, and the win rate we measured. It is free to read, and it is a record, not advice.

Support and resistanceDoes Support and Resistance Work? Tested on Gold (XAUUSD)buying support did nothing measurable. Selling resistance lost reliably, 8 versions cleared our statistical bar and all 8 were losses. And when we compared support and resistance entries against random entries using...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 78 versions · win rate 44.3% over 1,523 trades Order blocksDo Order Blocks Work? 288 Versions Tested on Gold (XAUUSD)no version of the order block passed our test, on any chart from 1-minute to weekly. On the hourly chart, buying them made +2.58 basis points a trade, and buying candles that looked identical except that they had no...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 288 versions · win rate 43.4% over 188,990 trades Fair value gaps (FVG)Do Fair Value Gaps (FVG) Work? Tested on Gold (XAUUSD)no. Across 192 versions on every chart from 1-minute to weekly, none passed our test. Two results are worth more than that verdict: trading the gap fill immediately lost almost exactly the spread on every single...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 192 versions · win rate 43.4% over 122,643 trades Liquidity sweepsDo Liquidity Sweeps Work? Tested on Gold (XAUUSD)21 of the 288 versions passed our statistical bar, and every one of them was a loss. All 21 were the same trade: selling gold after a recent high was taken and reclaimed. Buying after a recent low was taken showed...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 288 versions · win rate 45.2% over 51,993 trades Break of structure (BOS) and change of character (CHoCH)Does Break of Structure (BOS / CHoCH) Work? Tested on Goldacross 72 versions on the 15-minute, 1-hour and 4-hour charts, 1 lost reliably and 1 passed our bar, and that one's return beyond gold's own rise is uneven across the years (breakdown below). We treat it as unproven.Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 72 versions · win rate 48.4% over 2774 trades Fibonacci optimal trade entry (OTE)Does the Fibonacci OTE (0.618 to 0.786) Work? Tested on Goldno version passed, and the result has a shape worth more than the verdict. We tested five retracement depths on the same swings, the same waits, the same exits. The deeper the retracement, the worse the result, in a...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 240 versions · win rate 45.7% over 2,874 trades RSI divergenceDoes RSI Divergence Work? Tested on Gold (XAUUSD)no. Across 96 versions on every chart from 1-minute to weekly, none passed our bar. Win rates ranged from 38.4% (25,722 trades) to 58.4% (329 trades).Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 96 versions · win rate 43.7% over 23660 trades Golden cross (50/200 moving average)Does the Golden Cross Work? Tested on Gold (XAUUSD)trading every 50/200 cross made less than simply holding gold, on every chart that produced a cross. The selling side lost money on all of them.Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 Candle range theory (CRT)Does Candle Range Theory (CRT) Work? Tested on Goldno version passed. On the 1- and 5-minute charts CRT lost reliably enough to clear a demanding statistical bar, 12 versions did, every one a loss. The plan most people trade it with hits its target 62 to 71% of the...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026 · 144 versions · win rate 42.1% over 114,115 trades Risk to reward and win rateWhat Win Rate Does a 1:2 Risk-Reward Give? Measured on Goldon gold, entering at a random moment with a 1 ATR stop and a 2:1 target won 32.7% of the time on the hourly chart. The textbook number for a market with no pattern is 33.3%. On every chart from 15-minute upward,...Gold (XAUUSD) · January 2017 to September 2026

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