Three numbers that describe how the world’s currencies, metals, and crypto behaved in the last completed trading session — whether they moved as one market or as several, whether gold acted like a currency, and whether crypto took part at all.
Session of —
| Session | Dollar factor | Gold vs FX | Crypto vs FX | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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What a US data release does to these three numbers
The daily readings above are averages across a whole session. The interesting behaviour is concentrated in a few minutes. This is the same three measures in a quiet window, and in the ten minutes around a US data release at 12:30 UTC.
Hollow circle is a quiet window; filled circle is the release window. Each row runs from zero to its own maximum — 100% for the dollar factor, +1.00 for the two correlations. Gold nearly doubles its correlation and crosses into currency behaviour. Crypto moves in the same direction and still ends up below where gold starts.
How much more things move when the data lands
Price movement in the ten minutes after the 12:30 UTC US data slot, measured against what those same minutes normally do. The asset class with the most volatility available to spend is the one that reacts least.
Major currencies span roughly 1.6× to 2.0× depending on the pair; the figure shown is the top of that range. Six months of sessions, one venue’s data.
How to read these
Dollar factor. Take ten markets that all have the US dollar on one side — six major currency pairs, gold, silver, bitcoin, and ether — and ask how much of their combined movement can be explained by one common force. A high reading means everything on the screen was really the same trade. A low one means each market was minding its own business. The six-month average is 53%.
Gold versus FX. Gold’s average correlation with the six major pairs. Above roughly 0.55, gold is trading as a currency. Below 0.30, it is trading as a commodity. Gold is the only asset here that switches character depending on whether macro is in the room. Average: +0.43.
Crypto versus FX. The same measure for bitcoin and ether. Crypto sits far below fiat on this reading in every window we have measured — even at a US data release, where major currencies reach 0.85, crypto reaches about 0.34. Average: +0.19.
These numbers say how markets moved. The daily briefing says why — which releases landed, what they were expected to be, and what the gap did to prices. Become a member to get it each morning.
Measured from one-minute price data, using ten-minute returns from 07:00 UTC across EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, gold, silver, bitcoin, and ether, with dollar-quoted pairs inverted so every series reads as an asset against the dollar. A session is roughly 100 ten-minute windows, so a single day carries real sampling error — the run of days matters more than any one reading. Spot foreign exchange has no consolidated tape, so these figures describe one venue’s view of the market rather than the market itself. Educational and research content only; nothing here is financial, investment, or trading advice.