Why 100 ounces turns a $0.10 gold tick into $10.00
A 1.00 standard lot of XAUUSD is 100 troy ounces. Brokers quote gold to two decimals, and the industry pip on that quote is 0.10 (ten cents). One pip on 100 ounces is 100 × $0.10 = $10.00. A full $1.00 point move is $100.00 per lot. Retail screens that label every 0.01 increment as a "pip" will make you size five times too large, because those increments are points, not pips.
Worked example: gold trades 2650.40 to 2651.40. That is 10 pips (a $1.00 range) and $100.00 on 1.00 lot, or $10.00 on 0.10 lot. Typical raw spread sits at 1.2 to 2.5 pips ($0.12 to $0.25). During the 21:00 to 22:00 UTC CME rollover that spread can jump past 8 pips, so a 15-pip scalp stop is already gone to friction before price moves.
COMEX open sweeps, London Judas, and the real-yield trap
From 00:00 to 06:30 UTC gold often coils inside a $6 to $12 box. Frankfurt and London then raid that box between 07:00 and 08:30 UTC. The COMEX cash open (12:20 to 13:30 UTC) repeats the raid against the London range. If you sell the first push through 2650.00 or 2675.00 without waiting for a closed M15 reclaim, you are fading the stop run, not the trend.
US 10-year real yields are the macro driver. When CPI, NFP, or FOMC reprice TIPS, a 280 to 450 pip day is normal, not a black swan. That is a $28 to $45 price range and $2,800 to $4,500 on a naked 1.00 lot. connect your MT5 account to Venasri and cap gold during those red-folder windows instead of guessing the first spike.
Exact $100,000 lot formula for XAUUSD
Formula: lots = risk dollars / (stop pips × $10). On a $100,000 account, 1.0% risk is $1,000. A 69-pip structural stop (about $6.90, in the 55 to 90 pip intraday band) gives 1000 / (69 × 10) = 1.45 lots. Half-Kelly and most funded challenges belong at 0.50% ($500), which is 0.72 lots at the same stop. A 25-pip scalp stop would allow 4.00 lots at 1%, which is how gold accounts die on the COMEX wick.
Round-number magnet math matters because $25 and $50 handles (2650, 2675, 2700) are where the book thins. Place the stop beyond the handle plus 1.5× M15 ATR, then feed that pip distance into the Half-Kelly Lot Size Calculator & Equity Guard. Do not pick a lot size first and invent a stop that "fits" it.
Size gold before the CPI candle, not during it
Pre-compute two tickets: a London-session 55 to 90 pip stop at 0.72 lots, and a swing 140 to 220 pip stop at 0.45 lots. Equity Guard should flatten if floating gold loss hits about 3.5% on a 5% daily-limit firm, because a single COMEX wick can gap through the remaining 1.5%.
Run the Pre-Trade AI Confluence Checklist against H4 EMA50 slope, the unmitigated order block, and whether 12:30 UTC US data is inside 30 minutes. If real yields are the headline and gold has already traveled 200 pips from the Asian mid, skip the add-on. The range is spent.
