Gold Spot Price FAQ
Prices on this page as of (spot quote from gold-api.com).
These are the questions readers bring to a page like this one, answered briefly and with a source on every fact. The live figure behind most of them is the gold spot market price, which stood at $3,987.20 per troy ounce as of November 11, 2026. Each answer links to a longer page when there is more to say. Nothing here is advice about whether or when to buy or sell gold; the aim is to make the number on your screen easier to read.
The number itself
Most confusion about gold starts with the word "spot". It sounds like the price of anything gold you might buy today, but it describes a narrower thing: a wholesale trade in large bars. These answers pin the term down.
What is the gold spot price?
It is the price of gold for immediate delivery at a given time and place, which is how the CFTC glossary defines a spot price for any physical commodity. In London, immediate means settlement two business days after the trade, and the quote is in US dollars per troy ounce. The longer answer is on the page explaining what the spot price of gold is.
Is a troy ounce the same as a regular ounce?
No. Gold is priced in troy ounces, and LBMA's glossary puts one troy ounce at 31.1034768 grams, or 1.0971428 of the avoirdupois ounces used for food and postage. A kilogram holds about 32.15 troy ounces. At today's spot that makes a gram $128.19 and a kilogram $128,191.
Why do dealers charge more than spot?
Spot is a wholesale figure for big bars, and every retail sale adds costs on top of it. A CFTC and FINRA investor bulletin says a dealer always sells above spot and buys back below it. Minting, shipping, the dealer's margin and the size of the item all feed the gap. Our page on spot price vs retail price lists named, dated premium figures.
Do coins and bars carry the same premium?
Usually not. JM Bullion's guide says government bullion coins typically carry the highest premiums, partly because governments charge dealers seigniorage. StoneX Bullion writes that smaller items cost more per ounce because fixed minting costs are spread over less gold. Large bars tend to sit closest to spot, small coins and gram bars furthest from it.
Where and when gold trades
Gold has no single home. It changes hands in London's dealer market, on a New York futures exchange and on the Shanghai Gold Exchange, each with its own hours and its own way of forming a price.
Who sets the gold spot price?
Nobody sets it alone. London banks and dealers trade with each other directly, outside an exchange, and twice a day an auction run by ICE Benchmark Administration fixes the LBMA Gold Price at 10:30 and 15:00 London time. COMEX futures and the Shanghai Gold Exchange add their own prices. Read how the gold spot price is set for the full picture.
When is the gold market open?
COMEX gold futures run from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon, Eastern time, stopping for one hour each day. London's auctions happen at fixed times, and Shanghai trades a day session and a night session on Beijing time. Over the weekend, most quotes hold at Friday's last trade. The page on when the gold market opens converts each venue to Eastern time.
What do XAU and GC mean?
XAU is the code for gold in ISO 4217, the international currency-code list, with the numeric code 959. GC is the commodity code for COMEX gold futures, a contract for 100 troy ounces. On Yahoo Finance, GC=F pointed at the December 2026 contract on November 11. More symbols are decoded on the gold ticker symbols page.
Why is the Shanghai gold price different?
The Shanghai Gold Exchange quotes in yuan per gram for kilogram bars of 999.9 fineness, and China's central bank licenses gold imports. Once converted, its benchmark can sit above or below London. On November 10, 2026 the gap was +0.25%. Our Shanghai gold price page tracks that premium over time.
What moved the price
Gold's 2026 has been unusually loud: a record in January, a sharp reversal within days, and a long slide later in the year. These two answers give the short version and the scale of the market behind it.
Why did the gold price fall in 2026?
Several forces stacked up. Reuters reported that February gold futures settled 11.4% lower on January 30, the day after the record, as the dollar firmed on news of a new Fed chair pick. The Federal Reserve then raised rates in September. Our page on why the gold price is dropping dates each step.
How far is gold below its record?
Measured our way, as the top daily high reached by COMEX gold futures, the record is $5,586.20 from January 29, 2026, and futures trade 28.5% under that level today. Other publishers use other series: the World Gold Council lists a record LBMA Gold Price PM of US$5,307 an ounce on January 28, 2026. Compare records only within the same series.
How big is the gold market?
The World Gold Council estimates that 224,200 tonnes of gold exist above ground as of the end of the third quarter of 2026. Multiplied by today's spot, that comes to roughly $28.7 trillion. The Council stresses that the total ever mined cannot be measured precisely, so treat it as a size, not a count. The method is on the gold market cap page.
About this site
Two questions come up about the site itself: where its numbers come from, and who pays for it. Both answers are short, and the About page goes into more detail on each.
Where does this site get its numbers, and how often?
Spot comes from the gold-api.com feed, COMEX futures history from Yahoo Finance, long-run yearly figures from the US Geological Survey's Data Series 140, Shanghai prices from the Shanghai Gold Exchange benchmark, exchange rates from the European Central Bank, and the above-ground stock from the World Gold Council. Pages rebuild every six hours, and every live figure carries its time stamp.
How does this site make money?
Through one affiliate partner, Augusta Precious Metals. Its button requests a free gold and silver IRA information kit, and Augusta then contacts you by phone. Augusta's standard minimum purchase is $50,000, as stated by Augusta. The site is not paid to change any price, chart or answer on these pages.
Can this site tell me when to buy gold?
No. This site reports prices, their sources and their history, and it makes no forecasts. Augusta itself says it does not give financial, investment, legal or tax advice. If you are weighing a purchase, the comparison of what you actually pay and a licensed adviser are better starting points than any chart.
Sources
Every page a fact on this page came from, marked as the publisher's own page or a page that reports it, with the date we read it.
- cftc.gov (cftc.gov; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- lbma.org.uk (lbma.org.uk; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- lbma.org.uk (lbma.org.uk; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- cftc.gov (cftc.gov; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- jmbullion.com (jmbullion.com; a page reporting it; read 2026-11-11)
- stonexbullion.com (stonexbullion.com; a page reporting it; read 2026-11-11)
- lbma.org.uk (lbma.org.uk; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- lbma.org.uk (lbma.org.uk; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- ice.com (ice.com; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- cftc.gov (cftc.gov; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- en.sge.com.cn (en.sge.com.cn; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- six-group.com (six-group.com; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- cftc.gov (cftc.gov; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- finance.yahoo.com (finance.yahoo.com; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- en.sge.com.cn (en.sge.com.cn; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- faolex.fao.org (faolex.fao.org; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- profit.pakistantoday.com.pk (profit.pakistantoday.com.pk; a page reporting it; read 2026-11-11)
- federalreserve.gov (federalreserve.gov; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- gold.org (gold.org; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- gold.org (gold.org; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- gold.org (gold.org; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- Augusta Precious Metals free-kit request page (the page this site's buttons open; read 2026-11-11)
- augustapreciousmetals.com (augustapreciousmetals.com; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)
- augustapreciousmetals.com (augustapreciousmetals.com; the publisher's own page; read 2026-11-11)