In this lesson
Start with the mechanics
New to gold or MetaTrader 5? Begin here. You do not need to understand liquidity, BOS, CHoCH, or killzones yet.
This page gives you the minimum foundation needed to read an XAUUSD trade plan without guessing. Work from top to bottom on a demo account. The goal is not to place a trade today. The goal is to understand exactly what a trade would risk before you press a button.
1. What XAUUSD means
XAU is gold. USD is the US dollar. An XAUUSD quote tells you how many US dollars the feed is quoting for one troy ounce of gold.
Your broker may show XAUUSD, XAUUSD., GOLD, or another suffix. Those names can describe similar markets while still having different contract sizes, tick values, spreads, and trading hours. Always open MT5 → Market Watch → Specification before calculating risk.
2. Point, pip, and price move
Gold traders use the word pip inconsistently. One person may call a 0.01 move one pip; another may call a 0.10 move one pip. The platform itself gives you safer numbers:
- Digits — how many decimals the symbol displays.
- Point — the smallest displayed price increment.
- Tick size — the minimum tradable price change.
- Tick value — the money gained or lost for one tick at a stated lot size.
When somebody says “100 pips,” ask what price distance they mean. A written entry and stop price are clearer than pip slang.
3. Lot size is exposure, not risk
A lot controls how much the position gains or loses as price moves. It does not tell you the risk by itself. Risk depends on both lot size and the distance from entry to stop loss.
The same 0.10 lot can be a small risk with a tight stop and a much larger risk with a wide structural stop. Calculate the money at risk before choosing the volume.
Loading practice round…
Choose gold or a currency pair, then enter your account size, risk percentage and planned prices. Risk percentage is the part of your account you plan to risk on this one trade. For example, 0.5% of 10,000 is 50. The example is educational, not a recommended risk level.
Choose a market. Set your risk. See the estimated lot size.
Complete the fields to estimate size.
Broker details / advanced
Standard forex lots assume 100,000 units; gold assumes 100 troy ounces. If your broker differs, use its tick size and loss tick value for one lot in your account currency. Switching market or account currency resets this override.
Estimate before commission, swap and slippage. Reference conversions are daily, not live broker rates. Confirm the projected loss and volume limits in MT5. This does not check margin or funded-account rules. Reference rate source: Frankfurter.
4. Entry, stop loss, and take profit
- Entry is the price where the position opens.
- Stop loss (SL) is the broker-side exit intended to cap the loss if the idea is wrong.
- Take profit (TP) is a broker-side exit at a planned favorable price.
- Invalidation is the market condition that makes the setup thesis no longer valid. It should be written before entry.
- R is the original planned risk. A
2Rtarget is twice the entry-to-stop distance.
A stop is not guaranteed to fill at its exact price during gaps or extreme volatility. Slippage is possible. That is another reason to learn on demo before using real or evaluation capital.
5. Your first MT5 demo checklist
- Confirm you are logged into a demo account.
- Open the exact gold symbol's Specification window.
- Write entry, stop, target, and maximum dollar loss.
- Check lot size against tick value and stop distance.
- Confirm the order has a visible broker-side SL.
- After closing, find the trade in the History tab.
Where to go next
You now know the order mechanics. The next layer is context: what the H1 chart is doing before an M15 setup appears. Continue to H1 Bias Before M15 Execution.
If a term still feels unclear, do not trade around it. Write it down and ask in the community. Understanding the risk comes before trying to earn the reward.
Using the same mechanics for currencies
For a pair such as GBPUSD, the quote is US dollars per pound. For GBPJPY, it is yen per pound. A commonly used pip is 0.0001 for GBPUSD and 0.01 for GBPJPY; the broker’s point and tick size may be smaller. Never carry gold’s tick value across to a currency pair.
Check scheduled events for both currencies, and write down the session and timezone. Several trades sharing GBP can rise or fall together, so count their combined exposure before adding another position.
Check the Gold & FX Event Calendar before planning a session. Then use the pre-trade journal to record the idea, its invalidation, and the result, including skipped trades.
Sources: MetaQuotes symbol properties and OrderCalcProfit.