Non-farm payrolls: how gold reacts
Descriptive statistics over 126 past releases: how far the price travels in the half hour after publication, how long the largest one-minute candle gets and how often the impulse reverses. This is not a forecast.
- In the half hour after the release the price usually travels about $14.00, $17.77 on average. A stop inside that range gets taken out by the move itself, even when your direction is right.
- Direction is not predictable: it went up 62 times out of 126 — close to a coin flip. Betting on «good number, so I buy» does not work here.
- The impulse survives about half the time (48% reversals). You cannot always count on the move continuing.
- A single one-minute candle reached $82.16 — spreads widen at such moments and orders fill worse than the book suggests.
Average move, 30 min$17.77median $14.00
Largest M1 candle$82.16
First impulse up62 / 126
Reversal by +60 min48%
Average move profile after the release, XAUUSD
Each bar is 5 minutes: how wide the price swung during those minutes, averaged over all releases. This is the range, not the direction — it is always positive, whichever way the market went. Grey is before the release. Hover a bar to see the number.
- +0…+5 min
- $13.86
- +15…+20 min
- $4.49
- +30…+35 min
- $4.68
- +45…+50 min
- $3.47
- +60…+65 min
- $4.24
- +75…+80 min
- $3.65
Recent releases
| Date | Actual | Move in 30 min | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10/02/2026 | 29K | +$32.20 | faded within the hour |
| 09/04/2026 | 162K | −$78.32 | impulse held |
| 08/07/2026 | -23K | +$52.98 | impulse held |
| 07/02/2026 | 57K | +$52.96 | impulse held |
| 06/05/2026 | 172K | −$58.21 | impulse held |
| 05/08/2026 | 115K | +$14.42 | impulse held |
Released together with: Уровень безработицы, Средняя почасовая оплата м/м. The reaction is measured for the whole report.
How to read these numbers
- Move — the distance between the high and the low over the 30 minutes after the release. Not «how much you earn», but «how much the market swings».
- Largest candle — the single longest minute within those 30 minutes. Shows how sharp the first burst can be.
- First impulse — the side the price travelled further from the pre-release level during the first 5 minutes.
- Reversal — the price gave back more than half of the impulse by the end of the hour.
- The profile shows how long the shaking lasts. Bars fade as the impulse runs out: if the range at +30 min is already half, entering on momentum is late.
- n — how many past releases were counted. The larger it is, the less randomness in the percentages.
- This describes the past, it is not a forecast. Nothing guarantees the future repeats it.
Event values — FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), calculations are ours.
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