Spot Gold

The spot gold price refers to the price of gold for immediate delivery. Transactions for bullion coins are almost always priced using the spot price as a basis.

The spot gold market is trading very close to 24 hours a day as there is almost always a location somewhere in the world that is actively taking orders for gold transactions. New York, London, Sydney, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Zurich are where most of the trading activity takes place. Whenever bullion dealers in any of these cities are active we indicate this on our website with the message “Spot Market is Open”.

For the high and low values, we are showing the lowest bid and the highest ask of the day.

Spot Gold vs Gold Futures

There is usually a difference between the spot price of gold and the future price. The future price, which we also display on this page, is used for futures contracts and represents the price to be paid on the date of a delivery of gold in the future. In normal markets the futures price for gold is higher than the spot. The difference is determined by the number of days to the delivery contract date , prevailing interest rates, and the strength of the market demand for immediate physical delivery.

The difference between the spot price and the future price, when expressed as an annual percentage rate is know as the “forward rate”.