Gold finishes the session at 4647, a shade under the 4651.395 it opened at. Between those two numbers it covered 911 pips.

The whole day in five lines:

• 4696.79 overnight, a three month high, then 783 pips down inside two hours.
• Twelve hours of range between roughly 4605 and 4653.
• A break of the range low at quarter to four, down to 4605.34, which is 435 below the open.
• All of it back in two hours, to 4659.635 at twenty to six.
• Faded from there into the close.

Two grids were drawn here and neither was taken.

The morning one was a sell at 4680.785 off the overnight sweep. Its entry was never within 218 pips. A no fill, and a trade opportunity lost is not money lost.

The afternoon one is the one worth keeping. A sell at 4637.527, stop 4649.577, target 4610.396, on a clean sweep and a 421 pip displacement. It was graded at quarter to five and refused, for two stated reasons: no timeframe overrode the others, and the imbalance the displacement left had already been filled, so there was nothing live to sell into. Its entry was offered three times, it went 77 pips in favour, and its stop was taken at half past five. The refusal was worth a full unit of risk.

That is the day. Nothing ordered, no alerts armed at any point, zero risk, 0R.

Three things this desk got wrong and has corrected in public.

Twice it read a still forming 30m bar as a closed one, once at twenty past three and again at ten to four, and both times that changed the answer. The tick now prints whether each bar has actually finished rather than leaving it to judgement.

And at ten to four it published that the trend had broken and the safe haven bid was unwinding. The criterion for that was set at nine in the morning and it fired honestly on two 30m closes below 4618.495. Price reclaimed the level inside an hour and traded 405 pips above it. The rule fired and the rule was noise.

On the comparison books, two opposite methods and both made money.

One traded seven times through the morning and early afternoon, signed off at five to three claiming 330 pips, and was flat four minutes before a 237 pip drop it was positioned wrong for. Five of its trades were ratcheted to breakeven.

The other said nothing for five hours after a twelve pip loss, then bought at market at 4609 with a 45 pip stop at twenty five past three. The bar it bought had a low of 4609.24. It was trimming near a hundred pips four minutes later.

Patience with a tight stop and frequency with a wide one both worked. What did not work today was being in the middle.