GBP/USD: Daily Range, Character and Trading Hours

GBP/USD moves a median of 71 pips per day. Half of all days fall between 51 and 103 pips, and the widest day in our sample reached 216. Traders call it cable. Every figure below comes from 518 daily bars covering 2024-07-29 to 2026-07-30.

GBP/USD character: how the pair behaves

Sterling moves in sharper bursts than the euro. The pair, known as cable, tends to travel further on the same news and to reverse more abruptly, which makes stops placed by EUR/USD logic systematically too tight.

Measured daily range

• Median daily range: 71 pips
• Typical band (middle 80% of days): 51–103 pips
• Widest single day in sample: 216 pips
• Median close-to-close change: 38 pips; the largest 20% of days exceed 73
• Range of the pair over the whole period: 1.2171–1.3825, a span of 1654 pips

The gap between the median range and the widest day is the number worth remembering. A stop sized for a typical day is not a stop sized for the tail, and the tail is where accounts are damaged.

When it trades

Activity concentrates in London hours, and British data lands early in the session. The pair often sets its daily direction before New York opens.

Who it suits

Suited to traders who can size positions off volatility rather than off a fixed pip count. The same setup that works on EUR/USD needs a wider stop and a smaller position here.

Sizing a position on GBP/USD

Sterling's range is materially wider than the euro's, so a stop copied from a EUR/USD setup is systematically too tight here. Convert the stop into a fraction of the median daily range and keep that fraction constant across pairs — that is the only way position sizes stay comparable.

Data: 518 daily bars, 1 incomplete bars excluded. The sample is available for download and the method is described in how we run backtests. What actually moves this pair is covered separately in what drives GBP/USD.

This material is educational and is not individual investment advice. Trading forex carries the risk of losing capital.