XAUUSD London and New York Killzone Setups
The two highest-probability gold sessions: how London sweeps the Asian range on XAUUSD and how New York delivers the day's real move.
London: sweeping the Asian range
During Asia, gold typically builds a tight, low-volume range. When London opens (2:00–5:00 AM EST), the first institutional order of business is often to run one side of that range — the Asian high's buy stops or the Asian low's sell stops.
The London setup: mark the Asian high and low before the killzone. Let London sweep one side and immediately print a 1m/5m MSS away from the swept extreme. The entry is the FVG or order block the displacement leaves, targeting the opposite side of the range and then the previous day's extreme.
New York: the delivery leg
New York (7:00–10:00 AM EST) is gold's true arena — the COMEX open and the 8:30 data releases inject the day's largest volume. The highest-probability NY trade is the continuation of London's direction: wait for a pullback into the London displacement's models, not a new bias.
The alternative NY setup is the reversal: price sweeps the London high/low into the data release, prints an MSS on the 1m, and delivers back the other way. Both setups obey the same five rules — they differ only in which liquidity pool they're hunting.
What to skip
Gold between the killzones — the mid-day chop and the thin after-hours drift — produces sweeps without follow-through and models without displacement. On data days (NFP, CPI, FOMC), respect the release itself: the sweep around a release is real, but the spread and slippage are not tradeable for most accounts.
Log every gold trade with the killzone question answered honestly. Your session statistics will show you — usually within a month — that the same model pays inside the window and bleeds outside it.
Common questions
Should I hold gold trades through the New York open?+
If your thesis targets the day's opposing liquidity, yes — NY volume is what completes the delivery. Set the invalidation before the release, never during it.
How big is the Asian range on gold typically?+
Usually 3–8 dollars. The point isn't the size — it's that both extremes hold the stops London needs to run.
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