In live 5-minute price action trading, hesitation after a signal bar closes costs 15–30 points of slippage—or worse, rushing a static lot size blows up risk. Step through this historical XAUUSD London-NY session bar-by-bar using the interactive Replay simulator below.
🕯 XAUUSD · M5 (Historical Replay) · Fixed Risk $100 (1.0R) → 0.28 Lots
Execution anatomy (4 repeatable micro-steps)
- Context (Bars 1–11): Strong bull impulse followed by a two-legged pullback (first bounce fails at Bar 8, second bear leg traps sellers at 2654.80 and closes strong near its high on Bar 12).
- Pre-close Draft Sizing (Bar 12): Drag dashed Buy Stop 1 tick above signal bar high (2658.40) and SL 1 tick below signal bar low (2654.80). Fixed $100 risk immediately outputs 0.28 lots.
- Net Cost Protection (Bar 14): Once price reaches +1R (2662.00), click Break-Even on the purple Cost Line—stop moves to 2658.47 (covering $1.96 ECN commission, not raw 2658.40).
- Measured 2R Exit (Bar 16): Target at 2665.60 fills cleanly for +$200.00 net (+2.0R), logged in the Replay Analytics equity curve.