The journal
Every article in one place, capital protection, position sizing, market structure and the habits that keep an account alive. No signals, no promises: just the reasoning, written down.
All articles
Official gold is about 38,600 tonnes, 17 percent of all gold ever mined, and private hands hold more than two thirds. The US holds 8,133.53 tonnes on its own books at 42.2222 dollars an ounce.
Read the article → ProtectA stop order becomes a market order and always fills. A stop-limit becomes a limit order, and a limit order can decline. Worked in R, a jumped band turns a 1R plan into 5R.
Read the article → ProtectGold is 19.32 grams per cubic centimetre and tungsten is 19.30. Copper and lead fakes fail on a kitchen scale, tungsten fails nothing, and the LBMA endorses no definitive non-destructive test.
Read the article → ProtectMargin is the one number on your screen somebody else can change while you hold the position. The CFTC glossary on the portfolio risk model behind it, and why a 50% margin rise forces a one third cut.
Read the article → MasterWin rate is the number everyone quotes and the one that decides least. The break-even win rate at 3 to 1 is 25%, and it takes about 208 trades before your own expectancy figure means anything.
Read the article → ProtectThe register is the authority, not the website. Five minutes on the regulator's own database, and the four ways the check quietly fails. FBI IC3 logged 20.877 billion dollars of reported losses in 2025, up 26% on the year.
Read the article → MasterSpot is London metal now, COMEX is a 100 troy ounce contract for later. At the 3.86% 3-month rate published for 19 August 2026, the 91 day carry is 0.976%, which is most of the gap.
Read the article → ProtectAn assumed 10% round trip needed a median of 110 sessions to get back to level. Remove the decade's trend and 85.92% of five year holdings ended below break-even, against 0.00% as measured.
Read the article → ProtectA 0.50% round turn cost was larger than the entire session's move in half of 2,665 sessions. A limit 2% away never filled in 57.83% of attempts, and bought nothing better when it did.
Read the article → MasterThe formula takes four seconds. At 1:5 the typical worst losing streak is 19 trades and one run in twenty reaches 31, on exactly the same edge that gives 1:1 a streak of 6.
Read the article → ProtectWithout it there is no floor under a leveraged account. The worst single session in ten years of the gold benchmark fell 7.83%, enough to zero any account fully committed above 12.8 to 1.
Read the article → MasterThe correlation is minus 0.43, so real yields explain about a fifth of gold's monthly variation. The textbook relationship held in 77.2% of months, and for two years it did nothing at all.
Read the article → ProtectDouble the commission per side, divide by 100 ounces, and you have the threshold. At 250 round turns a year the model choice is worth 0.69R, and trade count is worth more.
Read the article → ProtectAcross 2,505 sessions the two metals correlated 0.52, rising to 0.68 on the days gold moved 1% or more. An even split by notional raised daily risk 26.71% instead of lowering it.
Read the article → MasterA hundred trades settles nothing. A trader with no edge shows a profit 46% of the time at that point, and a trader with a real edge still shows a loss 25.8% of the time.
Read the article → MasterThirty sessions out of 2,505 carried most of ten years of gold movement. Waiting is not the absence of a method, it is the part of the method nobody records.
Read the article → MasterMove your exits and the win rate goes from 39 percent to 75 percent on the same ten years of gold data. The 75 percent setting is the only one that loses money.
Read the article → ProtectGold fell 44.6 percent from its 2011 peak and needed nine years to come back. Holding is not the option without losses, it is the option where they last.
Read the article → MasterA 50 day moving average rule scored 51.41 percent on ten years of gold, while simply assuming gold rises scored 52.61. Improvement is not in the tool.
Read the article → MasterFive days gives 2.31 times the move of one day, and twenty days only 4.92 times. Movement grows with the square root of time, costs grow in a straight line.
Read the article → MasterEmotional exits raise the win rate you need from 33.3 percent to 66.7 percent. What 10,000 real accounts did, and the two points where feeling touches your account.
Read the article → MasterA two loss daily stop caps your worst day at 2R instead of 6R and gives up 41.7 percent of your setups. The break-even point that decides whether it is worth it.
Read the article → ProtectDown 20 percent, risking 1 percent gets you back to breakeven 92.7 percent of the time. Risking 10 percent to get there faster drops it to 60.6.
Read the article → ProtectThree open gold positions feel like three decisions. At 0.9 correlation they carry 2.90 times the risk of one and leave you 1.07 real bets. Drawdown is an exposure problem.
Read the article → EvidenceTest twenty worthless strategies and 88 percent of the time one clears a 60 percent win rate on luck alone. How to tell an edge from a coincidence before you fund it.
Read the article → Risk firstRegulators counted real accounts and found 74 to 89 percent of them losing. What success should mean when that is the base rate, and why size decides it.
Read the article → Record keepingYour platform stores profit, commission and swap as separate fields, so the Profit column is not what you kept. Where the record lives and how to read it.
Read the article → Chart readingA level that held four times feels proven. Every test fills some of the orders that made it hold, so the fourth touch is weaker than the first.
Read the article → Chart readingFive reasons to buy feels safer than one. The arithmetic says that when all five come off the same chart, agreement adds confidence without adding accuracy.
Read the article → Capital protectionYou can trade well and still lose the account in an afternoon. The shape these operations take, the withdrawal fee that settles it, and the five minute check before money moves.
Read the article → Chart mechanicsNobody draws a level ending in 00, yet gold hesitates there again and again. Why orders collect at tidy prices, and why the obvious spot is the worst place for a stop.
Read the article → Session mechanicsWhere US data lands and the heaviest volume of the day sits. How the session is built, why it changes character after London closes, and why louder is not better.
Read the article → Trade managementYour profit at the moment you enter is zero. Why the account is protected or lost in how you manage the trade, not where you got in.
Read the article → Macro mechanicsEvery price is a balance between how much gold exists and how much people want it. The slow supply, the shifting demand, and why it is a backdrop, never a signal.
Read the article → Macro mechanicsInflation quietly shrinks what cash can buy, which is a big part of why gold has long been held as a store of value. Why the link is real but slow, and why it is context, never a signal.
Read the article → Macro mechanicsGold is priced in dollars, so the two tend to move like a seesaw. Why a stronger or weaker dollar tilts the price of gold, and why the link is context to read calmly, never a signal.
Read the article → Macro mechanicsCentral banks are the quiet giants of the gold market. How their steady reserve buying builds a slow floor of demand under the price, and why it is context, never a signal.
Read the article → Macro mechanicsGold pays no interest, so when rates rise it competes with things that do, and often loses. A calm, risk-first map of real yields, the dollar, and why the link is a tendency, not a promise.
Read the article → Risk & leverageA margin call is your broker warning the account is out of room. What triggers one on gold, and the quiet habits, low leverage and defined risk, that keep you nowhere near it.
Read the article → Market mechanicsWhen a sudden headline sends gold spiking and whipsawing, chasing it is how accounts die. How to protect your capital through an unexpected shock with smaller size, defined risk, and patience.
Read the article → Market mechanicsThe London hours bring gold's sharpest moves. When the European session runs, why volatility rises, and how to size down and stay patient so it cannot hurt you.
Read the article → Capital protectionA deep loss needs a far bigger gain just to break even. What drawdown really is, why the math is brutal, and how to limit it and climb out calmly.
Read the article → Market mechanicsGold trades almost 24 hours, but it isn't equally awake all day. The Asian, London and New York sessions, and why the dead hours just feed the spread.
Read the article → Event tradingFOMC, CPI, payrolls, the moments that break accounts. Not because the direction is unknowable, but because execution breaks: spreads widen, stops get jumped, price whipsaws both ways.
Read the article → RiskAccounts rarely die from bad analysis, they die from oversized positions. A clear guide to risk per trade, stop distance, and sizing you fully control.
Read the article → DisciplineOvertrading is the quiet account-killer, not one big loss, but a slow leak of boredom trades, revenge clicks and overconfidence. Here's how to spot it and the constraints that stop it.
Read the article → The long gameDiscover why patient, disciplined trading beats chasing quick wins. Raphael explains pacing, compounding, and protecting capital for the long game in gold.
Read the article → Emotional masteryRevenge trading drains accounts in minutes. Raphael of Black Gold Market maps the three-stage spiral and the calm-headed circuit-breakers that break it.
Read the article → IndependenceIf you can't place a trade until someone tells you to, you don't own a process, you're renting one. Here's how to stop depending on trading signals and grow into a self-reliant gold trader.
Read the article → Capital protectionWhen XAU/USD swings hard on news, spreads widen and stops get run. Here's how to protect your capital with defined risk, smaller size, and knowing when to stand aside.
Read the article → Trading PsychologyTaking profit too early on gold is fear of giving back gains. Learn how to let winners run with a plan, stop cutting winners short, and build an exit strategy.
Read the article → Market structureLearn to read gold's trend and market structure before you trade: uptrends, ranges, support and resistance, moving averages and higher timeframes.
Read the article → PatienceThe hardest skill in trading isn't finding setups, it's skipping them. Why sitting on your hands and refusing low-quality trades protects your capital.
Read the article → ProbabilityTrading is a game of probability. Here's why you shouldn't judge your trading by one day, read it by the week, the candy-jar way, and Protect·Master·Grow.
Read the article → Safe-havenWhy gold behaves as a safe-haven when fear spikes, why chasing the rally burns new traders, and how discipline protects your capital in high volatility.
Read the article → ConsistencyYou win on Monday and give it back by Friday. Here's how to be a consistent trader, a repeatable process that scores execution over outcome, so you stop the give-back cycle for good.
Read the article →Start here, it's free
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