Gold Price Today

How the U.S. gold price is set

The gold price today at the top of this page is the price of one troy ounce of pure gold in U.S. dollars, taken from the wholesale market and refreshed about once a minute. No government agency or single company sets it. It is simply the level at which banks, refiners, funds and futures traders last agreed to deal.

In the United States the number most dealers watch comes from COMEX, the metals exchange owned by CME Group. Its standard gold futures contract, ticker GC, covers 100 troy ounces of gold at least 995 parts per thousand fine. The nearest actively traded delivery month sits within a few dollars of physical spot. The headline figure on this site is a real-time spot price, so it can differ by a few dollars from a site that quotes the front-month futures contract instead.

A market that follows the sun

Gold changes hands somewhere in the world almost all week. Trading opens in Asia on what is Sunday evening in New York, moves to London as Europe wakes up, and reaches its heaviest volume when London and New York overlap during the U.S. morning. The CME Globex platform runs from 6:00 p.m. Sunday to 5:00 p.m. Friday, Eastern Time, with a one-hour pause every afternoon.

From Friday at 5:00 p.m. to Sunday at 6:00 p.m. ET there is no exchange trading, so the price here stays frozen at the last trade and the timestamp tells you when that was. Big weekend news shows up as a gap: Sunday evening’s first trade can open well above or below Friday’s close. Holiday schedules for gold, silver, platinum and palladium are listed on the gold market hours page.

Why two websites can show different prices

• Some sites quote a spot feed from London dealers, others quote COMEX futures. In normal markets the gap is a few dollars an ounce.
• Many free feeds are delayed by up to about 15 minutes, which matters on a day when gold moves $30 in an hour.
• A quote can be the last trade, the bid, the ask or the midpoint between them. Each is legitimate, and each is a slightly different number.
• When the futures market rolls from one delivery month to the next, a continuous futures price can jump by a few dollars without any real change in the market.

Reading the live gold price box

Every figure in the header grows out of one number: the price per troy ounce. The rest is arithmetic or a comparison with an earlier price.

• Per troy ounce is the last traded price of pure, 24-karat gold. Precious metals always use the troy ounce of 31.1035 grams, never the 28.35-gram ounce your kitchen scale shows.
• The change and percent columns measure the move since the previous session’s close. A red arrow on a Monday morning usually reflects everything that happened since Friday afternoon.
• Per gram, per pennyweight and per kilogram are the same price divided by 31.1035, divided by 20, or multiplied by 32.1507. They are conversions of one quote, not separate markets.
• The day range is the lowest and highest trade of the current session. A wide range signals a volatile day, and dealer spreads often widen on days like that.
• The “as of” time is shown in Eastern Time. If it is hours old on a weekday, the market is on its daily break or closed for a holiday.

Current gold price in the tables below

The karat table multiplies the pure-gold price by purity: 22K by 22/24, 14K by 14/24 and 10K by 10/24. The coin table multiplies by each coin’s fine gold content. A one-ounce American Gold Eagle and a one-ounce American Buffalo therefore show the same melt value even though the Eagle weighs more, because its extra weight is copper and silver alloy.

These are metal values and nothing more. A certified rare coin can sell far above melt, and a scrap buyer will pay below it. If you mostly deal in small jewelry weights, the gold price per gram page breaks the same quote down from 1 gram up to a kilo in every karat.

Why the price of gold today moves

Most daily moves trace back to a short list of forces. None of them works like a switch, and on some days they pull in opposite directions.

The dollar and interest rates

Gold is priced in dollars, so a weaker dollar tends to lift the dollar price of gold and a stronger dollar tends to weigh on it. Interest rates matter because gold pays no interest or dividend. When the yield on inflation-protected Treasury securities, the so-called real rate, climbs, holding gold means giving up more income. When real rates fall, that cost shrinks.

That is why a Federal Reserve rate decision or a speech by the Fed chair can move gold sharply even when nobody mentions the metal.

Scheduled U.S. data

Many of the day’s sharpest moves happen at 8:30 a.m. ET. That is when the monthly jobs report, usually released on the first Friday of the month, and the consumer price index come out. A surprise in either one changes expectations for interest rates within seconds, and gold reprices with them.

Demand that doesn’t show on a screen

• Central banks, especially in emerging economies, have been large net buyers for their reserves in recent years. Their purchases tend to support prices over months rather than minutes.
• Exchange-traded funds backed by physical gold take in or release metal as investors buy or redeem shares.
• Jewelry buying in India and China rises around festivals and the wedding season, including Diwali and Lunar New Year.
• Wars, sanctions and banking scares draw in buyers who want an asset that is nobody else’s liability.

A longer explanation, with the questions worth asking on a big up or down day, is on the page about why gold is going up or down.

From the gold rate today to the price at the counter

The quote on this page is a wholesale price for large lots of metal. What you pay or receive in a shop is built on top of it, and the gap is widest on small items.

1. Start with the spot price, the live figure above. The gold spot price page explains how spot, futures and retail prices differ.
2. Add the product premium. Minting, assaying, packaging and the dealer’s margin are charged per piece, so a 1-gram bar costs far more per ounce than a 1-ounce coin or a 10-ounce bar.
3. Add shipping, insurance or card fees if the seller lists them separately. Many dealers price cash, check or wire payments lower than card payments.
4. Check the sales tax. Many states exempt investment bullion, some only above a minimum purchase, and a few tax it fully. The gold sales tax by state table lists each state’s rule.
5. When you sell, the process runs in reverse: the buyer starts from spot and subtracts a margin, plus refining costs for jewelry and scrap.

On the federal side, the IRS treats gold bullion and coins as collectibles. Long-term gains on them are taxed at a maximum rate of 28%, higher than the top long-term rate on stocks. Gains on metal held a year or less are taxed as ordinary income.

Checking a quote in under a minute

When a dealer or jeweler gives you a number, ask three things: which weight unit it uses (troy ounces, grams or pennyweights), what purity it assumes, and whether it is a buying or a selling price. Multiply the pure-gold weight by the live price and you have the melt value. Set the quote against that, and the size of the premium or discount is plain to see. For jewelry, the scrap gold calculator runs the arithmetic by karat and shows typical buyer payouts.