Retail Sales hits at 8:30 ET. Consumer spending drives two-thirds of GDP — when the number surprises, the dollar moves, and gold moves the other way.

This study uses the pre-news high and low as targets on Gold (GC). Price sweeps one side, leaves an Inverse Fair Value Gap (IFVG) on the rejection, and you enter when it breaks back inside the range, aiming for the opposite side's liquidity. If both sides get swept before the IFVG triggers, the setup is dead — the target liquidity is already gone. An optional Silver (SI) filter only keeps the trade when silver confirms the same move. Tested on 1-minute GC data, 2016 to 2026.

Rules: sweep the pre-news high/low, wait for the rejection gap, enter on the break back inside. Stop 0.10 (one GC tick) beyond the sweep. Target the opposite liquidity (the pre-news pivot). The SI filter keeps a trade only if silver reaches its mirror target within 2h30 of the release. Missing SI bars at 8:30 ET return no confirmation — that's a data gap, not a disqualifier.

Performance — GC, 10 years

No filter: 101 trades, profit factor 1.00, net +0.1 GC points. With the silver filter: 2 trades, win rate 0%, profit factor —, net -2.2 GC points.

Flat without SMT. No edge with SI confirmation.

Why gold behaves differently from the Nasdaq

The Nasdaq and the S&P are both equity indices and move almost in lockstep, so cross-confirmation between them is a clean signal. Gold and silver are both metals, but their intraday liquidity splits at news: gold is deep and continuous, silver is thin and patchy. The SMT signal is structurally weaker because SI's sparsity means many "no confirmation" readings are data gaps rather than genuine divergence.

Disclaimer

101 total setups, 2 SMT-filtered trades. AI-assisted analysis, not financial advice.

Retail Sales · IFVG + SMT