Average daily range is only comparable across markets as a percentage of price — 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: September 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.
Download this dataset
Every figure on this page as raw CSV and JSON, regenerated whenever the archive updates. Free for any use, including commercial, with attribution to FxBacktest.
- average-daily-range-ranked-by-percentage.csvAverage daily range, ranked by percentage of price — all 25 instruments
- average-daily-range-by-asset-class.csvAverage daily range by asset class
- average-daily-range-by-calendar-year.csvAverage daily range by calendar year (% of price) — 2026 is year-to-date
- average-daily-range.jsonAll tables plus metadata, one file
Cite or republish this data
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