A pip is not a unit of risk. ETH/USD moves 6.50% of its price on an average day; EUR/CHF moves 0.53%. This page measures the average daily range of all 25 instruments in the FxBacktest archive on a single comparable scale — forex, metals, oil, indices, crypto and single stocks side by side.
Key takeaways
- ETH/USD has the widest average daily range at 6.50% of price; EUR/CHF the narrowest at 0.53%.
- EUR/USD averages 90.7 pips per day (0.76%) across 4,252 sessions.
- Gold moves 1.7× the daily percentage range of the average forex pair — the reason forex stop distances do not transfer to metals.
- Median daily range is below the mean on every instrument: typical days are calmer than the average implies, because a minority of violent days pull the mean up.
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Average daily range: all 25 markets ranked
Ranked by average range as a percentage of price — the only measure that lets a currency pair, a barrel of oil and a share of Tesla be compared honestly. The pips column uses each instrument's own pip convention and is included for traders who think in pips on a specific market.
| # | Instrument | Class | Avg range % of price | Median % | 90th pct % | Avg range pips / points | Days | Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ETH/USD | Crypto | 6.50% | 5.33% | 11.46% | 109.2 | 2,560 | 2017-12 → 2026-07 |
| 2 | BTC/USD | Crypto | 5.06% | 4.04% | 9.36% | 1,721.8 | 2,703 | 2017-05 → 2026-07 |
| 3 | TSLA | Stock | 4.17% | 3.75% | 6.35% | 1,262.2 | 769 | 2023-07 → 2026-07 |
| 4 | NVDA | Stock | 3.41% | 2.99% | 5.50% | 1,028.3 | 769 | 2023-07 → 2026-07 |
| 5 | Brent crude | Commodity | 3.01% | 2.50% | 5.10% | 217.0 | 3,852 | 2010-12 → 2026-07 |
| 6 | Silver (XAG/USD) | Commodity | 2.74% | 2.24% | 4.61% | 802.4 | 4,005 | 2011-02 → 2026-07 |
| 7 | AAPL | Stock | 2.05% | 1.75% | 3.45% | 403.6 | 2,383 | 2017-02 → 2026-07 |
| 8 | US100 (Nasdaq) | Index | 1.69% | 1.41% | 3.01% | 196.1 | 3,411 | 2013-05 → 2026-07 |
| 9 | GER40 (DAX) | Index | 1.57% | 1.31% | 2.68% | 217.5 | 3,305 | 2013-09 → 2026-07 |
| 10 | Gold (XAU/USD) | Commodity | 1.44% | 1.23% | 2.37% | 2,714.8 | 4,419 | 2009-07 → 2026-07 |
| 11 | US500 (S&P) | Index | 1.31% | 1.04% | 2.35% | 47.2 | 3,399 | 2013-05 → 2026-07 |
| 12 | US30 (Dow) | Index | 1.26% | 1.02% | 2.24% | 364.5 | 3,412 | 2013-05 → 2026-07 |
| 13 | AUD/JPY | Forex cross | 1.10% | 0.95% | 1.80% | 95.3 | 4,193 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 14 | NZD/CHF | Forex cross | 1.01% | 0.88% | 1.59% | 66.0 | 4,195 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 15 | AUD/USD | Forex major | 0.98% | 0.88% | 1.59% | 77.0 | 4,195 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 16 | GBP/JPY | Forex cross | 0.96% | 0.84% | 1.59% | 150.3 | 4,193 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 17 | EUR/JPY | Forex cross | 0.89% | 0.76% | 1.50% | 116.4 | 4,194 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 18 | CAD/CHF | Forex cross | 0.87% | 0.75% | 1.40% | 68.1 | 4,320 | 2010-01 → 2026-07 |
| 19 | GBP/USD | Forex major | 0.80% | 0.70% | 1.26% | 110.5 | 4,252 | 2010-04 → 2026-07 |
| 20 | USD/JPY | Forex major | 0.80% | 0.69% | 1.36% | 92.5 | 4,194 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 21 | EUR/USD | Forex major | 0.76% | 0.67% | 1.28% | 90.7 | 4,252 | 2010-04 → 2026-07 |
| 22 | AUD/CAD | Forex cross | 0.76% | 0.68% | 1.18% | 72.2 | 4,320 | 2010-01 → 2026-07 |
| 23 | USD/CAD | Forex major | 0.69% | 0.61% | 1.13% | 84.6 | 4,252 | 2010-04 → 2026-07 |
| 24 | EUR/GBP | Forex cross | 0.68% | 0.59% | 1.11% | 57.1 | 4,193 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
| 25 | EUR/CHF | Forex cross | 0.53% | 0.42% | 0.95% | 57.8 | 4,193 | 2010-06 → 2026-07 |
By asset class
The ordering is stable and unsurprising in direction, but the size of the gaps is what matters for position sizing.
| Asset class | Instruments | Mean daily range | Lowest | Highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crypto | 2 | 5.78% | 5.06% | 6.50% |
| Stock | 3 | 3.21% | 2.05% | 4.17% |
| Commodity | 3 | 2.40% | 1.44% | 3.01% |
| Index | 4 | 1.46% | 1.26% | 1.69% |
| Forex cross | 8 | 0.85% | 0.53% | 1.10% |
| Forex major | 5 | 0.81% | 0.69% | 0.98% |
The practical consequence: risk-per-trade rules transfer across markets, but stop distances in pips do not. A position sized from the stop distance, as described in lot size from stop loss, handles this automatically — a fixed pip stop does not.
How volatility has changed by year
Average daily range is not a constant. It expands in crises and contracts in quiet regimes, which is exactly why a strategy backtested on one period can behave differently in another.
| Instrument | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EUR/USD | 0.49% | 0.73% | 0.53% | 0.97% | 0.71% | 0.56% | 0.72% | 0.57% |
| GBP/USD | 0.79% | 1.01% | 0.66% | 1.10% | 0.80% | 0.61% | 0.69% | 0.66% |
| USD/JPY | 0.53% | 0.66% | 0.52% | 1.02% | 0.93% | 0.91% | 0.89% | 0.60% |
| Gold (XAU/USD) | 1.09% | 1.71% | 1.31% | 1.41% | 1.21% | 1.37% | 1.71% | 2.82% |
| US500 (S&P) | 1.11% | 2.33% | 1.19% | 2.20% | 1.22% | 1.10% | 1.42% | 1.32% |
| US100 (Nasdaq) | 1.45% | 2.68% | 1.65% | 2.91% | 1.66% | 1.58% | 1.83% | 1.97% |
| BTC/USD | 5.11% | 5.22% | 6.89% | 4.90% | 3.41% | 4.33% | 3.43% | 3.69% |
If your backtest covers only one of these regimes, your results describe that regime rather than the strategy. See backtesting across market conditions and how far back to backtest.
Methodology
- Source: Dukascopy daily bid OHLC, as held in the FxBacktest historical archive.
- Measure: daily range = high − low, expressed both in the instrument's pip units and as a percentage of that day's close.
- Aggregation: arithmetic mean across every qualifying session; median and 90th percentile shown alongside so the skew is visible.
- Exclusions: Sunday bars (a partial session that would understate the average) and any bar where high equals low.
- Windows differ by instrument and are stated per row — gold reaches back to 2009-07, while TSLA and NVDA begin in 2023. Comparisons across different windows are not like-for-like.
- Caveat: ranges are bid-side and exclude spread and commission.
- Updated: July 2026.
Average daily range FAQ
What is average daily range in trading?
Average daily range (ADR) is the mean distance between a day's high and its low, measured over a long history. It tells you how much a market typically moves in a session, which is the anchor for realistic stop, target and position-size decisions. Quoting it as a percentage of price lets you compare markets that trade at wildly different prices.
Which market has the highest average daily range?
Of the 25 instruments measured here, ETH/USD has the widest average daily range at 6.50% of price, and EUR/CHF the narrowest at 0.53%. Crypto and single stocks sit well above forex; the forex pairs measured average 0.83% per day.
How many pips does EUR/USD move in a day?
Across 4,252 trading days from 2010-04 to 2026-07, EUR/USD averaged 90.7 pips between the daily high and low, equal to 0.76% of price. The median day is smaller at 0.67%, and one day in ten exceeds 1.28%.
Is gold more volatile than forex?
Yes, by roughly double. Gold's average daily range is 1.44% of price against a 0.83% average across the forex pairs measured here. That is why a stop distance that is sensible on EUR/USD is usually far too tight on gold, even though both are quoted in pips.
Why is average daily range shown as a percentage?
Because pips are not comparable across markets. A 100-pip move on EUR/USD, on gold, and on the Nasdaq are three completely different amounts of risk. Expressing the range as a percentage of price puts every instrument on the same scale, which is the only fair way to rank a currency pair against a stock or a cryptocurrency.
Where does this data come from?
Dukascopy daily bid bars held in the FxBacktest historical archive — the same price series the simulator replays. Sunday bars are excluded because they cover only a partial session, as are any bars where the high equals the low.
Cite or republish this data
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