Suppose you're at an outdoor market. Sellers shout prices, buyers haggle, deals happen. By the end of the day, a "going rate" for tomatoes emerges — not because anyone decreed it, but because that's where supply met demand most often. Gold's global price works the same way, just spread across the entire world and running 23 hours a day.

The spot price — continuous OTC

Most of gold's trading happens in an over-the-counter (OTC) market between bullion banks, refiners, central banks, and large institutional traders. There's no central exchange like the New York Stock Exchange; instead, dozens of dealers quote two-way prices (bid + ask) at any moment, and the published "spot price" is the rolling consensus of those quotes.

This market runs nearly 24 hours: Asia opens Sunday evening (US time), London comes online mid-morning, New York takes over in the afternoon. There's a brief gap on weekends and at the daily 5pm New York handover, but otherwise gold has a price every second.

The LBMA fix — twice-daily reference

While spot is continuous, contracts (e.g. central-bank settlements, refinery deliveries) need a single agreed price for the day. The London Bullion Market Association runs two short auctions:

  • 10:30 AM London (LBMA AM fix)
  • 3:00 PM London (LBMA PM fix)

A handful of authorised bullion banks submit buy/sell orders; the auction iterates until supply matches demand within a tolerance. The published "fix" is that reference price for the day. The PM fix in particular is the world's most-watched gold price for valuation purposes.

COMEX futures — the speculative layer

Layered on top is the futures market on COMEX (in Chicago). Each contract represents 100 troy ounces, expires monthly, and is heavily leveraged. Hedge funds and large speculators dominate this layer. Futures don't set the spot price directly but they pull it around — heavy net buying on COMEX often precedes spot rallies, and vice versa.

Local retail prices

Your local gold-shop price isn't the same as the spot price. Three components stack:

  1. International spot — USD per troy ounce.
  2. FX conversion — USD → local currency at today's rate.
  3. Local premium — refiner + dealer margin, workmanship if it's jewelry, plus any country-specific taxes (VAT, import duty).

The premium varies: bullion bars charge 1-3% over spot in most countries, jewelry 8-25%. Egyptian and Saudi 21K jewelry typically carries 6-12% over the metal value, which is why selling jewelry back to a dealer recovers less than buying it — you lose the workmanship on resale.

Nobody "decides" the gold price. It's the running consensus of millions of independent transactions. The LBMA fix just gives the world a single number to write contracts against.

For a gold watcher

DahabPro's spot ticker is the OTC continuous price (refreshed every minute). The "Today's open / high / low" stats are derived from intra-day OHLC. The local 24K per-gram column applies steps 2 and 3 of the conversion using live FX and the country's typical premium — so you're looking at what a retail buyer in Cairo or Riyadh would actually pay TODAY, not yesterday's newspaper price.