Published as a TradingView Idea on XAGUSD. View the chart on TradingView
How far does a metal move in an ordinary week? We measured gold, silver and copper over the last 52 weeks, from high to low, so you know what normal looks like before calling a week unusual.
What we measured
TradingView 4 hour data, UTC. Gold is OANDA XAUUSD and silver OANDA XAGUSD, both spot. Copper is COMEX HG1!, the continuous futures contract, so a contract roll can add a small gap to a week. A week runs from Sunday evening’s open to Friday’s close. Its range is the week’s high minus its low, as a percent of where it opened. The last year is the 52 weeks starting 13 October 2025 to 5 October 2026, and the year before is printed beside it, never mixed in.
A normal week
Gold: median range 5.1%. 27 of the 52 weeks moved more than 5%. One week in ten moved 8.8% or more.
Silver: median range 11.0%, 2.2 times gold. 51 of the 52 weeks moved more than 5%. One week in ten moved about 18% or more.
Copper: median range 5.3%, about the same as gold. 28 of the 52 weeks moved more than 5%. One week in ten moved 7.4% or more.
| Metal | Median weekly range (%) | One week in ten, at least (%) | Weeks over 5% (of 52) | Median close vs open (%) | Biggest week | Its range (%) | Its close vs open (%) | The year before: median range (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | 5.1 | 8.8 | 27 | 2.3 | 26 Jan 2026 | 18.4 | -2.4 | 3.2 |
| Silver | 11.0 | 18.0 | 51 | 5.0 | 26 Jan 2026 | 46.2 | -18.7 | 5.0 |
| Copper | 5.3 | 7.4 | 28 | 1.8 | 26 Jan 2026 | 13.8 | +0.3 | 4.9 |
Where the week closed is a smaller number than how far it travelled. The median close-to-open move was 2.3% for gold, 5.0% for silver and 1.8% for copper. In more than half the weeks, each metal closed less than half its range away from where it opened: gold 31 of 52, silver 29, copper 35.
Normal changes
The year before (weeks from 14 October 2024), the medians were gold 3.2%, silver 5.0% and copper 4.9%. Silver’s normal week more than doubled in a year, and gold’s grew by about 60%. Copper’s barely changed. A stop or a target sized on the year before would sit inside an ordinary silver week now.
The chart: the week of 26 January 2026
All three metals had their biggest week of the year in the same week. Silver opened it at 104.73 and made an all-time high of 121.67 on Thursday 29 January. On Friday 30 January, President Trump named Kevin Warsh as his pick to chair the Federal Reserve, and precious metals had one of their worst days in decades. Silver traded down to 73.31, 39.7% under Thursday’s high, 28 hours after it. It closed the week at 85.19: a 46% range in a week whose median is 11%.
Gold fell 16.5% from its own high of 5,602 in the same days, an 18.4% range. Copper’s range was 13.8%. COMEX silver futures show the same drop: 121.79 to 74.00, 39.2%.
Copper had its own week like that the year before: a 26% range in the week of 28 July 2025, when the US left refined copper out of its 50% tariff. That one was a US-only move; the London price barely changed.
How to check it on your own chart
- Open the metal on a 4 hour chart in UTC and take one week, from Sunday evening’s open to Friday’s close.
- Take the week’s high minus its low and divide by the week’s open.
- Compare it with the medians above: about 5% for gold and copper, about 11% for silver. Twice that was a big week.
- An ordinary week still moves. Keep your usual stop, and size the position from it.
What this does not tell you
What next week will do. 52 weeks is one year, and that year held the biggest metals swings in decades, so the year before is printed beside it on purpose. A median says what usually happens; the week of 26 January says what it does not stop.
What it’s good for is knowing the size of an ordinary week before you decide one isn’t.
Observations, not recommendations.
We’re Signal Pilot Labs. We build the Elite Seven, seven indicators for TradingView, and we post what we measure, including the parts that didn’t work.
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Published as a TradingView Idea on XAGUSD. View the chart on TradingView
Past measurement described after the fact. Nothing here is a recommendation or an indication of future results.