How to Trade a Bollinger Band Squeeze

Twenty small days, and a band to match

A Bollinger Band squeeze is the band at its narrowest. The band's width is the size of the last twenty days — two typical steps above and below their average — so a run of small days pinches it. Through June and July 2025 gold's days were small, and on 18 July its bands stood 86 dollars apart, the narrowest of the year. That pinch is the squeeze. Then the days grew, and the band grew with them: 212 dollars by 2 September, 471 by 12 September. A squeeze is only ever the band at its narrowest, and it is named after the fact.

A coiled spring

The picture is a coiled spring. Pressed tight, the coils touch: that is the squeeze, twenty small days and a band pinched to match. Let go, the coils open out: the days get bigger again and the band widens with them. The spring says nothing about which way it will go, up or down, and nothing about when. It says only that a band this narrow is at the bottom of its own scale, and that the next change in its width can only be a widening. That is the whole of what the word contains.

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