XAU/USD Price Today: Live Gold Price in U.S. Dollars

What sits behind an XAU/USD quote

XAU/USD is the spot price of one troy ounce of gold in U.S. dollars for delivery in London two business days after the trade. It trades over the counter between banks, dealers and brokers rather than on a single exchange, which is why every platform shows a slightly different number at the same moment.

Loco London and T+2 settlement

“Loco London” means gold held in a London vault, the reference location for the global spot market. A spot trade settles two business days later, by transfer between accounts at the clearing banks. The wholesale unit behind it is the London Good Delivery bar: roughly 350 to 430 troy ounces, usually close to 400, with a minimum fineness of 995 parts per thousand.

Bid, ask and the midpoint

Trading screens show two prices: the bid, which you receive when selling, and the ask, which you pay when buying. Most price sites, this one included, show a single figure close to the midpoint. The gap between bid and ask widens during thin hours and around major data releases.

USD/XAU, the inverse

USD/XAU shows how many ounces one dollar buys. At an example XAU/USD rate of 3,000, USD/XAU is 0.000333. The inverse is rarely used in trading, but some currency converters list the pair that way round, so both forms turn up in searches.

The XAU index is not the metal

On stock-market sites, “XAU” can mean the Philadelphia Gold and Silver Index, a basket of mining-company shares. Its level has nothing to do with the dollar price of an ounce. If a quote labeled XAU looks wildly off, check whether you are looking at that index. Its members overlap with the companies on the gold mining stocks page.

XAU/USD next to the other gold prices

Several prices claim to be “the gold price.” They are all linked by arbitrage, but they trade in different places and settle in different ways.

Why XAU/USD and gold futures differ

A futures contract delivers later than spot, so its price includes the cost of carrying gold until then: roughly the interest rate minus the rate at which gold can be lent. The front-month contract usually trades a few dollars above spot. Traders call the gap the exchange for physical, or EFP. In March 2020, with flights grounded and several Swiss refineries shut, the EFP widened far beyond normal because bars could not easily be moved from London to New York.

Converting XAU/USD to grams and kilos

1. Divide the quote by 31.1034768, the number of grams in a troy ounce. At an example rate of $3,000, one gram of pure gold is worth $96.45.
2. Multiply the gram price by 10 for ten grams ($964.52) or by 1,000 for a kilo ($96,452).
3. For jewelry, multiply the gram price by the purity. At the same example rate, a gram of 14K gold (58.5% gold) contains $56.42 of gold.
4. Round only at the last step; rounding the ounce-to-gram factor to 31 overstates the per-gram price by about a third of a percent.

The gold price per gram page does this conversion live for every karat.

Getting XAU/USD exposure from the United States

Overseas, XAU/USD is often traded as a leveraged contract for difference. Those products are generally not available to U.S. retail customers. Americans who want exposure to the dollar gold price usually choose among four routes.

• COMEX futures (GC for 100 ounces, MGC for 10): exchange-traded, margined, and taxed under the 60/40 futures rule.
• Physically backed gold ETFs: bought in any brokerage account, with an annual fee, and taxed as collectibles when sold at a gain.
• Physical coins and bars: no counterparty, but you pay a premium over spot when buying and receive less than spot when selling.
• Mining shares: linked to gold but driven by company costs and management, so they are not a price proxy.

The gold futures page covers GC contract math in detail.

For the fund route, the gold ETF page explains how shares in a trust track the metal and why each share holds a little less gold every year.

Reading an XAU/USD chart

Many platforms quote XAU/USD to two decimal places, so the smallest step is one cent per ounce. Terminology differs between brokers: some call a 10-cent move a “pip,” others a full dollar a “point,” so check the platform’s definitions before comparing figures from two sources. Candlestick charts on different platforms can also disagree because each draws its bars from its own price feed.

Why the price can look different from one app to the next

One app may show the bid, another the midpoint, a third the front-month futures price labeled as “gold.” Before comparing, check which one you are looking at. The gold price per ounce today on this site is based on front-month COMEX futures, the most-watched U.S. gold price.

When XAU/USD trades

Spot gold follows nearly the same weekly rhythm as the futures market, from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon Eastern Time. The gold market hours page shows whether the market is open right now.

Units and cross rates behind the gold pair

The ounce in XAU/USD is always a troy ounce, and the pair can be translated into any other currency with one division. Both points trip up newcomers.

Why the troy ounce

Precious metals have been weighed in troy units for centuries, and the wholesale market never switched. A troy ounce is 480 grains, or 31.1035 grams. The ordinary avoirdupois ounce used for food and postage is 437.5 grains, or 28.3495 grams. One troy ounce therefore equals about 1.097 avoirdupois ounces, a difference of almost 10% that matters as soon as someone weighs gold on a kitchen scale.

Working out XAU/EUR or XAU/GBP

Gold in other currencies is a cross rate. Divide XAU/USD by the dollar value of one unit of the other currency.

For currencies quoted the other way round, such as USD/JPY, multiply instead: at an example USD/JPY of 150, XAU/JPY is 3,000 × 150 = 450,000 yen per ounce.

Why XAU/USD reacts to other currencies

The euro makes up the largest share of the Dollar Index, so a strong euro day usually means a weaker dollar and firmer XAU/USD. A jump in XAU/USD with XAU/EUR flat is really a euro move; a jump in both is gold itself being bought.