The current gold spot price per troy ounce, gram, and kilogram — updated every 60 seconds. Fixed at $35/oz for 37 years under Bretton Woods. Confiscated by FDR in 1933 at $20.67. Today's price is set twice daily in London by 12 banks. Everything you need to know about the number that moves markets.
| Karat | Purity | Price / Gram | Price / Oz | Common Uses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24K | 99.9% | — | — | Bullion bars, coins, some Asian jewelry |
| 22K | 91.7% | — | — | American Gold Eagles, Krugerrands |
| 18K | 75.0% | — | — | Fine jewelry, watches Common |
| 14K | 58.3% | — | — | Most US jewelry, class rings Most Common |
| 10K | 41.7% | — | — | Budget jewelry, older chains Common |
| 9K | 37.5% | — | — | UK & Australian jewelry |
Most people assume the gold price just "comes from the market." The reality is more specific. The gold spot price is officially benchmarked twice a day — at 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM London time — via the LBMA Gold Price, administered by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA). This replaced the 95-year-old telephone "London Gold Fixing" on March 20, 2015, when five banks gathered twice daily on a phone call and literally announced a price. The modern electronic process runs through IBA's platform with 12 direct participant banks including HSBC, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Scotiabank, and UBS, and typically resolves in under 60 seconds.
The LBMA PM Fix at 3:00 PM is the most important number — it's the benchmark used to settle gold contracts globally, mine production sales, and central bank transactions. Between fixes, continuous trading on COMEX in New York (the world's largest gold futures exchange, processing over 27 million contracts annually) generates the live prices you see on this page, updated every 60 seconds.
Here is the most remarkable and least-known fact in precious metals finance: the United States government officially values its gold reserves at $42.22 per troy ounce — a statutory price set by the Par Value Modification Act of 1973 and never updated in 53 years.
The US holds approximately 8,133.5 tonnes of gold — the world's largest sovereign gold reserve — spread across Fort Knox (~4,603 tonnes), the West Point Mint, the Denver Mint, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. At the $42.22 statutory price, the entire reserve is carried on the Treasury's balance sheet at approximately $11 billion. At current spot prices above $3,000/oz, the same gold is worth over $780 billion. This $769+ billion gap between government book value and market value is one of the most striking accounting anomalies in modern finance — and one of the most compelling arguments made by advocates for revaluing the US gold certificate account as a policy tool.
On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102, requiring all US citizens and entities to surrender gold coins, bullion, and gold certificates to the Federal Reserve at the official rate of $20.67 per troy ounce. The order exempted small amounts (up to $100 face value), jewelry, dental gold, and gold used in the arts and industry. Violations carried penalties of up to $10,000 (equivalent to approximately $230,000 today) and up to 10 years imprisonment.
Less than a year later, the Gold Reserve Act of January 30, 1934 revalued gold from $20.67 to $35.00 per troy ounce — an overnight 69% devaluation of the dollar. Citizens who had surrendered their gold at $20.67 watched the metal they were forced to sell immediately revalued 69% higher, with no compensation. Private ownership of gold bullion in the United States remained illegal until December 31, 1974, when President Ford signed legislation restoring the right. Gold bullion ownership had been effectively criminalized for 41 years.
This history is why a meaningful segment of precious metals buyers today cite government confiscation risk as a reason to prefer smaller, lower-profile gold items over large bars or publicly trackable holdings.
Between 1961 and 1968, eight central banks — the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the central banks of West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland — secretly coordinated to suppress the market gold price at the Bretton Woods peg of $35/oz. Whenever private gold demand pushed the price higher, the pool sold gold from collective reserves to drive it back down.
French President Charles de Gaulle, who famously mistrusted the US dollar-dominated system, withdrew France from the pool in June 1967 and began converting French dollar reserves into gold at $35/oz — effectively redeeming dollars for gold at a price the pool was working to maintain. The pool collapsed on March 15, 1968, when a surge in demand (partly driven by the growing realization that the US couldn't maintain the peg indefinitely) overwhelmed the consortium's supply. The London gold market closed for two weeks. A two-tier gold market was established — private market free to float, official central bank rate fixed at $35. The pool's failure directly exposed the dollar's Achilles heel and set the stage for Nixon's formal end of gold convertibility on August 15, 1971 — the event that unleashed gold to trade freely for the first time in modern history.
The gold spot price is the current market price for one troy ounce (31.1035 grams) of .999 fine gold. It's the wholesale benchmark — what large institutional traders pay for immediate delivery. When financial media says "the price of gold," this is the number they quote.
Spot prices move continuously during market hours (Sunday 6 PM to Friday 5:15 PM Eastern) as COMEX futures trade. The price on this page is fetched live and refreshed every 60 seconds. Because gold is a global market, there's no single "open" and "close" — Tokyo hands off to London which hands off to New York, creating a near-continuous 23-hour trading day.
| Date | Price | Cause |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-1971 | $35.00 | Bretton Woods fixed rate; gold not freely traded by citizens (banned 1933–1974) |
| Jan 21, 1980 | $850.00 | Peak inflation era; Soviet Afghanistan invasion; Hunt Brothers silver squeeze driving metals broadly higher. ~$3,200+ in 2024 dollars. |
| 1981–1999 | $250–$500 | Two-decade bear market. Volcker's rate hikes crushed inflation and killed gold demand. UK Treasury sold 395 tonnes at ~$275/oz (1999–2002) near the bottom. |
| Sep 6, 2011 | $1,921.17 | Post-2008 QE peak; European sovereign debt crisis; US credit downgrade by S&P. Gold tripled from 2008 lows in three years. |
| Aug 7, 2020 | $2,067.15 | COVID stimulus; real 10-year Treasury yields at -1%; unprecedented Fed balance sheet expansion. Gold broke $2,000 for the first time. |
| Early 2025 | $3,000+ | Record central bank buying (1,037 tonnes in 2023 — highest since 1950); de-dollarization demand; rate cut cycle begins. |
| 2026 | $5,000+ | Continued geopolitical risk, ongoing central bank diversification away from US Treasuries, tariff-driven inflation pressures. |
Sources: LBMA historical records, World Gold Council, Federal Reserve historical data, NBER.
Gold's most powerful and academically documented price driver is real interest rates — the nominal rate minus expected inflation. When real rates are negative (inflation exceeds nominal yields), holding a zero-yield asset like gold has no opportunity cost relative to bonds, and demand surges. When real rates are positive (yields exceed inflation), gold faces competition from interest-bearing alternatives and tends to underperform.
Research by financial economists Claude Erb and Campbell Harvey demonstrated an R-squared above 0.90 between real 10-year Treasury yields and gold prices over multi-decade periods — one of the tightest macro correlations in finance. In practical terms: the 2020–2022 period of deeply negative real rates (fed funds near zero, CPI near 8%) produced gold's move from $1,500 to $2,067. When the Fed raised rates aggressively in 2022–2023, turning real rates positive, gold consolidated despite elevated inflation — exactly as the model predicts.
Central banks are now the single most important structural demand driver for gold. In 2022 they purchased 1,081 tonnes — the highest annual total since 1950. In 2023, they bought 1,037 tonnes (World Gold Council). The People's Bank of China added gold to its reserves for 18 consecutive months through 2023–2024 and holds approximately 2,235 tonnes as of late 2024. Poland, Turkey, India, and other emerging market central banks have been aggressive buyers, diversifying away from US dollar-denominated assets. This sovereign demand has no equivalent in silver — there is no central bank buyer of silver — which is a structural reason gold commands a persistent premium over silver in the modern era.
Gold is priced in US dollars globally. A 1% weakening of the dollar against major currencies mechanically raises gold's USD price for international buyers — even if the gold price in euros, yuan, or rupees stays flat. Conversely, a strong dollar suppresses the dollar price of gold while international buyers may see little change. The DXY (US Dollar Index) and gold have a historically inverse relationship, though central bank buying has partially overridden this relationship in recent years.
In September 2020, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $920 million in a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice for precious metals market manipulation. Between 2008 and 2016, JPMorgan traders placed large gold and silver futures orders and immediately cancelled them to create false market signals — a practice called spoofing. Multiple traders were subsequently convicted on federal racketeering charges. The $920 million settlement was the largest ever for a futures market manipulation case and serves as documented evidence that gold prices have at times been deliberately distorted by institutional participants.
While wholesale gold trades in troy ounces, most consumers encounter gold by the gram. The per-gram price equals the per-ounce price divided by 31.1035 (the exact number of grams in one troy ounce). For jewelry, you must then adjust for purity using the karat or hallmark system.
The US uses karat markings (10K, 14K, 18K, 24K). Europe, Asia, and the international market use three-digit hallmark numbers stamped directly on the piece: 999 = 24K (99.9% pure), 750 = 18K (75% pure), 585 = 14K (58.5% pure), 417 = 10K (41.7% pure), 375 = 9K (37.5% pure, standard in UK and Australia). If you find "750" or "585" stamped on a ring, bracelet, or watch case, those numbers tell you the gold content precisely, allowing exact melt value calculation at any spot price.
The spot price is a wholesale benchmark. Every buyer pays spot plus a fabrication premium; every seller receives spot minus a dealer margin. Understanding the spread is essential to knowing whether you're getting a fair deal.
Buying premiums above spot: Generic gold rounds and bars: 2–5%. American Gold Eagles and Canadian Maples: 5–9%. Pre-1933 US gold coins (Saints, Liberty): 10–30%. Rare numismatic coins: 50–300%+. The karat price table on this page shows the raw melt value — the floor below which no rational seller should accept.
What you receive when selling: Major online dealers (APMEX, SD Bullion): 97–99% of spot. Local coin dealers: 90–97% of spot. Pawn shops: 40–65% of spot. Cash-for-gold kiosks and mall booths: 30–50% of spot. The difference between selling to a coin dealer at 95% versus a pawn shop at 50% on a $3,000 gold coin is $1,350. Knowing today's spot price — which this page provides in real time — is your single most important tool when selling.
A $100/oz move in gold can mean thousands of dollars on a meaningful position. MetalMetric lets you set custom gold price alerts — get notified by email when gold crosses above or below your target, or when the GSR hits a ratio threshold. Pro and Elite tiers include alerts, deal scoring, and full portfolio analytics. Set your gold price alert.
Gold spot price data is provided for informational purposes only and may be delayed. Nothing on MetalMetric constitutes financial or investment advice. Always verify prices with your dealer before transacting. Terms of Use