The band is a ceiling, and 0.83 lots is the half-percent plan
Gold pays about $10 per 0.10 of price on 1.00 lot, which is $100 per $1. A stop measured in 50 to 70 pips is a $5 to $7 move. At 0.80 lots the 50-pip stop is $400. At 1.45 lots the 70-pip stop is $1,015. Dual Step can technically survive four $1,015 losers only on paper, because four times $1,015 is $4,060 and the day is $4,000. Two of them are already $2,030. The band exists so one wick cannot eat the entire day. It does not exist so you can sit at 1.45 lots all week.
The half-percent unit on $100,000 is $500. A 60-pip gold stop at that cash risk is about 0.83 lots, which is the bottom of the 0.80 to 1.45 band. That is the working size. Use 1.00 lot only when the stop is 50 pips, because 50 times $10 is $500. Use 1.45 lots only when you have shortened something else, and even then treat it as the maximum the wick math allows, not as the default click. Bot controls should refuse a gold order whose cash loss at the stop is above $500 unless you deliberately override it.
The COMEX open is where the extra pips appear
The COMEX opening window around 12:20 to 13:30 UTC is where gold sweeps both sides and then runs. A stop that looked structural at 60 pips can fill at 100 pips in that window. On 0.83 lots, 60 pips is about $500 and 100 pips is about $830. On 1.45 lots, 100 pips is about $1,450. The Dual Step day does not grade the stop you intended. It grades the fill. Lightning is harsher: the day is $3,000, so a $1,450 slip is nearly half of it.
A second gold ticket, or a EURUSD position that is really the same US dollar view, adds another full risk to the same wick. Two 0.83 lot gold ideas are not two small trades. They are about $1,000 if both 60-pip stops fill, and more if the open runs through them. Count metals and the dollar as one bucket during the COMEX hour. The static 8% floor, $8,000 on this balance, is usually not what fails. The $4,000 day is.
Funded gold still owes the two-minute news window
Evaluation accounts may trade the news. Funded accounts may not open or close inside the two minutes before a red-folder print or the two minutes after it. CPI is a gold event. A partial that fires inside that window can be a restricted close even though the lot was legal. If you want the profit banked, take it before the window. If you want the trade to survive the number, the stop has to be wide enough to stay in the market, and the cash at that wide stop has to fit the day.
The daily reset is 00:00 ThinkMarkets time, GMT+2 or GMT+3, from the higher of balance or equity. A gold runner that is $2,000 ahead at the snapshot can raise the next day base. Giving that float back after midnight spends half of a fresh $4,000 hole. Overnight holding is allowed. A funded weekend hold needs the swing add-on, and a Sunday gold gap is scored inside the new day. The 2,000-message cap still applies if a trail is editing the gold stop on every tick through the overlap.
Flatten gold exposure at $3,250, not at the wick
Equity Guard should flatten Dual Step near $3,250 of daily loss on $100,000, which is inside the damage of four max-band losers and after about three $1,015 hits. That is intentionally early. Lightning gold should flatten near $2,250 against the $3,000 day. A guard set at the official print arrives at the same moment the firm closes the account, which is too late to be a plan.
Open a Venasri account and store 0.83 lots as the 60-pip gold default on this balance, with 1.45 lots stored as a hard ceiling rather than a preference. If the structural stop is 70 pips, the half-percent lot is about 0.71, because $500 divided by 70 pips at $10 is 0.71 lots. Change the stop first, then the lot, then send the order.
