Gold All-Time High

Which record a headline means

Gold’s all-time high is the highest price ever recorded for one troy ounce, but the answer depends on how you measure it: closing prices, intraday trades, the London benchmark or inflation-adjusted dollars. This page tracks the highest daily close of front-month COMEX gold futures.

News reports often cite a different figure, and both can be accurate. An intraday record can sit well above the closing record, because a spike during trading may reverse before the close.

Records in other currencies

Gold can hit a record in yen, euros or rupees while it is still below its dollar record, if that currency has weakened against the dollar. The reverse also happens. A headline about a record high abroad does not mean the U.S. price is at a record.

Is gold at an all-time high right now?

1. Compare the live price in the header with the record close shown next to it.
2. Read the “From record” figure: zero or positive means gold is at or above its highest close.
3. Check the timestamp. A record set during today’s session isn’t final until the close.
4. Check which type of record a news story uses before comparing it with this page.
5. Open the MAX range on the gold price chart to see today’s price against the whole record.

The records that stood for decades

For most of U.S. history there was no market record to break. The price was fixed by law, at about $20.67 and from 1934 at $35. Free-market records only became possible after private ownership of gold was legalized on December 31, 1974.

The 1980 peak

The first great record came on January 21, 1980, when the London fix reached $850. Inflation in the United States was running in double digits, and the Iranian hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had unsettled markets. In nominal terms, that high stood for about 28 years, until gold closed above it in January 2008.

The 2011 peak

After the financial crisis, gold climbed to a peak around $1,900 in September 2011. That record took about nine years to fall.

The 2020 highs

In the summer of 2020, as the pandemic hit the world economy and interest rates fell toward zero, gold passed its 2011 high and broke above $2,000 for the first time in early August. Month-by-month prices for that year are on the gold price in 2020 page. The years since then that saw new record closes appear in the table above.

Why the gaps were so long

Both long gaps followed periods when real interest rates rose. After 1980, the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker pushed rates to very high levels to break inflation, which made interest-bearing assets more attractive than gold. After 2011, the economy recovered and the Fed signaled in 2013 that it would scale back its bond purchases, and gold fell sharply that April. The broader drivers of gold’s moves are covered on the why gold is going up or down page.

The full record from 1970, with yearly highs and lows, is on the gold price history page.

Doing the math on a record

What “From record” tells you

The “From record” percentage is the current price minus the record, divided by the record. A negative number means gold is below its best close. The math has a catch: recovering a loss needs a bigger percentage than the loss itself.

How a record close is confirmed

A new record close only counts once the session has ended and the day’s closing price is above every earlier close. Gold can trade above the old record during the day and still close below it, in which case the intraday record changes but the closing record does not. The table of record years on this page counts only the days that closed at a new high.

Nominal records and buying power

A nominal record says the dollar price is higher than ever. It does not say gold buys more than ever. To compare with 1980, multiply the $850 fix by the ratio of today’s consumer price index to the January 1980 index. The result is several times the nominal figure, which is why inflation-adjusted and nominal records are separate questions.

A round-number illustration makes the point. If the general price level has quadrupled since an old peak, a $1,000 peak then equals $4,000 in today’s money. A new nominal record at $3,500 would still be below that old peak in real terms.

What record prices mean for people buying and selling

Record highs change the practical side of the market, not just the headline. Nothing here is a prediction or advice; these are patterns in how the trade works when prices are at extremes.

• Spreads can widen. When prices move fast, some dealers widen the gap between their buy and sell prices to protect themselves from sudden swings.
• Selling gets busier. Record headlines bring more sellers to jewelers and gold buyers, and some buyers respond by trimming the share of melt value they pay.
• Premiums on coins and bars can move in either direction, depending on whether retail buyers are chasing the rally or cashing out.
• Taxes follow the gain. Selling physical gold at a profit means paying tax on it as a collectible, at a maximum long-term federal rate of 28%.
• Records say nothing about next month. Analysts’ views, and why they often disagree, are summarized on the gold price forecast page.

If you are thinking of selling near a record, compare several offers on the same day and check them against the gold price today, not against yesterday’s headline.

Jewelers, pawn shops, coin dealers and mail-in refiners pay very different shares of melt value; the where to sell gold page compares them.

Record terms in brief

• All-time high: the highest price ever recorded under a stated method.
• Record close: the highest price at the end of a trading session.
• Intraday high: the highest single trade during a session, whether or not the price held until the close.
• Benchmark: an auction price such as the LBMA Gold Price, used in contracts and official statistics.
• Drawdown: the percentage fall from a previous record.
• Nominal: measured in the dollars of the day, without adjusting for inflation.