Gold Closing Price Today and Yesterday

Four different closes for the same trading day

The gold closing price most U.S. sources quote is the COMEX settlement at 1:30 p.m. ET, but electronic trading continues until 5:00 p.m. ET, so the answer to “what did gold close at today” depends on which close a source uses.

Why two websites show different closes

Gold can move $20 or more between 1:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on a busy afternoon. A site that reports the settlement and one that reports the 5:00 p.m. price can both be right and still disagree. Check the time stamp next to the figure before comparing, and compare like with like when you work out a daily change. Some sites label the prior settlement as the “previous close” while others use the 5:00 p.m. price, so the daily change can differ between two sites even when the current price is identical.

Gold and silver closes together

Searches for “what did gold and silver close at today” mix two schedules. Silver’s LBMA benchmark is set once a day, at noon London time, while gold’s is set twice. On COMEX both metals settle in the early afternoon Eastern Time, so their settlement prices are the easiest pair to compare. The gold futures page explains how the settlement feeds margin accounts.

Using yesterday’s close to measure today’s move

The daily change you see on any gold page is today’s price measured against the previous close. The arithmetic is simple, but the choice of close matters.

1. Pick one source and one type of close, and use it for both days.
2. Subtract the previous close from the current price to get the dollar change.
3. Divide the dollar change by the previous close.
4. Multiply by 100 for the percentage change.

As an example: a previous close of $2,980.00 and a current price of $3,016.00 give a change of +$36.00, and $36 ÷ $2,980 = 0.0121, or +1.21%.

Monday compares with Friday

Gold does not trade on weekends, so Monday’s “yesterday” is Friday’s close. After a U.S. market holiday, the previous close is the last full session before it. That is why the price of gold “yesterday” can be several days old.

Today versus yesterday per gram

To turn an ounce change into grams, divide by 31.1035. The $36 move in the example is about $1.16 per gram of pure gold, and about $0.68 per gram of 14K. Our gold price per gram page shows the live gram figure for each karat.

Which date a close belongs to

CME counts the electronic session that starts at 6:00 p.m. ET as part of the next business day. A trade on Sunday evening belongs to Monday’s trading date, and a trade at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday belongs to Wednesday. That is why a price quoted late in the evening can appear under the following day in futures data.

Finding the close for a specific past date

For insurance claims, estates or tax records you may need gold’s price on one exact day. Use the close of that date if the market traded; if it fell on a weekend or holiday, most records use the last close before it. Note which benchmark you used, settlement or LBMA, so the figure can be checked later.

Closes for longer periods

Weekly, monthly and yearly closes are just the last daily close in each period. Yearly returns on the gold price history page are calculated from the last close of one year to the last close of the next.

How the official closing benchmarks are set

Both of the benchmark closes are produced by defined procedures rather than by a single last trade.

The COMEX settlement

CME Group calculates the daily settlement from trading in a short window just before 1:30 p.m. ET, weighting trades by volume. If trading in a contract is too thin, it uses bids, offers and the spread to related months. Every open futures position is then marked to that price, and gains and losses move between accounts overnight.

The LBMA Gold Price

The LBMA Gold Price replaced the London Gold Fixing, which had been set by a small group of banks since 1919, on March 20, 2015. It is now an electronic auction run by ICE Benchmark Administration at 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. London time. Participants enter buy and sell volumes at a proposed price; the price is adjusted in rounds until buying and selling roughly balance, and that price is published.

Why contracts use the auction rather than the last trade

An auction price comes with a published method, a record of participants and a fixed time. That makes it harder to dispute than a last trade, which is why supply contracts, ETF valuations and many central banks reference it.

Where the close matters

• Futures accounts are marked to the settlement, and margin calls follow from it.
• Physically backed ETFs value their gold against a daily benchmark to set net asset value.
• Jewelry and industrial supply contracts often price metal at a named benchmark on a named date.
• Estate and gift valuations of bullion need a published price for a specific date.
• Your own cost-basis records are easier to defend when they cite a published close.

Common questions about gold’s record and weekend closes

Two situations cause most of the confusion about closing prices: record highs and weekends.

Record close or record high

A record close is the highest daily closing price; a record high is the highest price traded at any moment. The intraday high is always at least as high as the close and often well above it. The gold all-time high page separates the two.

What the weekend price is

From Friday at 5:00 p.m. ET to Sunday at 6:00 p.m. ET, every quote you see is Friday’s last price. The first trade on Sunday evening can open away from it if news broke over the weekend. The gold market hours page shows the full weekly schedule and holiday pauses.

Holidays and missing closes

Holidays create gaps that trip up spreadsheets. On some U.S. holidays CME runs a shortened electronic session and trades are booked to the next business day, so no settlement is published for the holiday date. London bank holidays produce the opposite gap: New York trades normally, but no LBMA Gold Price is set in London that day. When a data series shows a blank for one date, check the holiday calendar before assuming an error, and use the last available close for that benchmark rather than mixing in a figure from the other one.

Where the live figure fits

During trading hours the current gold price at the top of the page is the latest trade, not a close. Once trading pauses, it stays at the last trade until the market reopens.