Gold’s performance in 2025 has once again put it on the radar of traders who may have forgotten about it. Its high liquidity and volatility make it a great asset for all types of traders – scalpers, day traders, swing traders, and position traders.
However, rushing to trade gold without the necessary knowledge of how it operates or the best practices for trading it can be disastrous. This can especially be compounded if you trade it with leverage.
In what follows, we consider five pro tips for trading gold in 2026 that will help you get a handle on the precious metal.
1. Combine technical and fundamental analysis
Given its performance as a safe-haven asset and a portfolio diversifier, gold holds a special place in the global economy.
Therefore, you cannot trade gold based only on technical analysis.
You should understand how central bank demand, investment demand, supply dynamics, geopolitical tensions, and global economic events affect its price movements.
When you understand this, you can better predict price movements based on fundamentals. For example, when a weaker dollar leads central banks to increase their gold reserves, you know that gold’s price will likely increase in response.
On the other hand, you cannot ignore technical analysis. Price charts, volume charts, and technical indicators will help you better time your trades and identify more trading opportunities than if you relied solely on fundamental analysis.
2. Avoid overleverage
Warren Buffett once called financial derivatives, many of which rely on the use of leverage, a weapon of mass destruction.
Of course, when you are right, leverage is a weapon of mass prosperity: it can amplify your returns on profitable trades.
However, when you are wrong, leverage can magnify your losses and put your trading capital at risk.
The solution is not to avoid leverage but to align it with your risk appetite and current market dynamics.
If you are conservative, avoid using the same leverage as an aggressive trader. Also, if your trading strategy has a low win-loss ratio, overleverage can put your capital at risk.
Finally, when market volatility is greater than usual, it might be helpful to dial down on leverage until there is some normalisation.
3. Implement wise risk management strategies
Even the best traders cannot predict the market correctly at all times.
As all experienced traders know, the key is to be correct more times than you are wrong, and to gain more money when you are right than you lose when you are wrong.
In this regard, risk management is crucial.
Gold can swing sharply within hours, so protect your capital by setting stop-loss orders to cut short your losses when the market moves against you.
Also, set take-profit orders to lock in profits once you have reached your reward-risk ratio (RRR).
Allowing the trade to continue indefinitely because you are in profit is a dangerous game, especially when volatility is high. The trade that is in large profits can activate your stop-loss order in minutes.
4. Explore downtrends and uptrends
To fully maximise the opportunities in the gold market, you need a strategy that allows you to go long and short, depending on the current market trend.
Also, the way you trade gold will determine how many opportunities you can explore. For example, with gold stocks and ETFs, it is easy to go long but more difficult go short.
However, with gold CFDs, you can go long or short on gold. This allows you to profit both when the market is in an uptrend and a downtrend.
Also, gold CFDs provide direct exposure to gold’s price, leverage, high liquidity, lower transaction costs, trade simplicity (go long or short), and longer trading hours (24/5).
Learning how to trade gold CFDs in the UAE (Arabic version) is a good way to fully explore the opportunities in the gold market.
5. Time your trades
Timing your trade to the period when liquidity is strongest is a good way to minimise bid-ask spreads and get fast execution.
For gold, this is usually between 13:00 and 16:00 GMT (5 pm to 8 pm in the UAE) when the European and US sessions overlap.
Finally, implementing all you have learnt about how to invest in gold in the UAE requires that you use a broker that can offer you the tools you need to succeed.
With more than 25 years of experience in the GCC financial industry, Daman Markets is a broker you can trust. Their Acuity Research Terminal provides you with everything you need for sound fundamental, technical, sentiment, and news analysis.
Also, they process deposits and withdrawals quickly and, backed by high liquidity, they execute trades immediately with low bid-ask spreads.
The platform also provides various leverage options so you can choose the one that aligns with your risk tolerance. Furthermore, they provide personalised support so you can receive the help you need at every stage of your trading journey.
