See the gold session structure that scalpers trade around

XAU Session Indicator is a MetaTrader 5 indicator built for XAUUSD charts. It draws the high and low of the Asian, London and New York sessions as shaded boxes, marks each session's opening range, displays the current spread against a threshold you set, and shows a countdown to the next high-impact US release. It is the visual companion to Northwind's Aurora XAU Expert Advisor, but it works on its own for discretionary gold traders who want the same context on their charts.

Session boxes and opening ranges

Each session is drawn from its configured start to end time in your broker's server time, corrected by the GMT offset you enter, so the boxes land on real market hours regardless of where your broker is based. Within each session the first fifteen or thirty minutes are marked separately as the opening range, a period that many gold strategies use as a reference for breakouts and reversals. Historical sessions remain on the chart for as many days back as you choose, which makes it easy to see how often price returns to a prior London high or New York low.

Spread and news awareness

Gold spreads vary far more than currency spreads and can widen several times over around US data. The indicator shows the live spread in points in a chart corner, colours it against your threshold, and records the average spread for each session box so you can see which hours are cheap to trade at your broker. Using the terminal's economic calendar, it also shows a countdown to the next high-impact US event and shades the chart lightly for a configurable window around it. This is purely informational; the indicator never places or closes trades.

Buffers for other tools

Session highs and lows, opening-range boundaries, the current spread and the minutes to the next event are exposed as indicator buffers, so an Expert Advisor or another indicator can read them with the standard buffer functions. The PDF documents the buffer indices, which makes it possible to build simple session-aware rules in your own code or to display the values on a dashboard.

Repaint policy

Completed session boxes never change. The current session's box extends as new highs or lows print, which is the expected behaviour for a range that is still forming, and the indicator marks the forming box with a dashed border so you can tell it apart from finished ones. Nothing is calculated using future bars.

Included and supported

You receive XAUSessionIndicator.ex5, a template file that applies the vendor's preferred colours and a clean white chart background, and a PDF covering the GMT offset, the buffer map and suggested settings for two- and three-digit gold quotes. Updates are included for the lifetime of the indicator. Because it does not trade, the indicator has no performance data; what you do with the information it shows is entirely a matter of your own strategy and risk management.

• MetaTrader 5 build 4410 or later.
• An XAUUSD chart; M1 to H1 timeframes are supported, with M5 and M15 recommended.
• The broker's economic calendar enabled in the terminal for the countdown feature.
• Your broker's GMT offset entered in the inputs so the session boxes align with real hours.

1. Download and extract the archive from your account. It contains the indicator, a chart template and the PDF.
2. In MetaTrader 5 open File > Open Data Folder and copy XAUSessionIndicator.ex5 into MQL5/Indicators.
3. Copy the .tpl template into MQL5/Profiles/Templates.
4. Restart the terminal so the indicator appears in the Navigator under Indicators.
5. Open an XAUUSD M5 or M15 chart and drag XAUSessionIndicator onto it, or right-click the chart and apply the included template.
6. Enter your broker's GMT offset, choose the opening-range length and set your spread threshold in the inputs.
7. Confirm the London box begins at 08:00 London time on the current day; if it does not, adjust the offset.