vs Yesterday
+$12
+0.5%. Daily moves of $10–30 are typical.
Gold Spot Price (USD/oz)
London PM Fixing · LBMA
$
0
+$12 vs. yesterday
Past 12 months
$2,100 – $2,425
vs Last Year+$280
5-Yr Avg$2,010
All-Time High$2,425
Gold is up $280/oz (13%) over the past year and just $7 below the all-time high set two days ago. Central bank buying remains the dominant demand source, with the People's Bank of China and Reserve Bank of India both net accumulators.
Historical trend
Daily PM Fix from London Bullion Market.
Source: FRED · LBMA PM Gold
The long view: since 1968
Sixty years of gold. The 1971 Nixon Shock changed everything.
Nominal High $2,425 · May 12, 2026
2000 Low $273 · Dec 2000
Today $2,418
How today stacks up
vs Last Year
+$280
+13.1% in 12 months. Outpacing most equity indexes.
5-Year Average
$2,010
Today is $408 above the 5-yr mean.
1980 High (real $)
~$2,950
Inflation-adjusted, gold hasn't beat its 1980 peak.
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About the Gold Spot Price
This is the London PM Gold Fixing — the gold spot price set twice daily (10:30 AM and 3:00 PM London time) by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA). It's the global reference price for an ounce of pure gold, quoted in U.S. dollars per troy ounce (one troy ounce = 31.1 grams). When jewelers, ETFs, mints, and central banks quote a "gold price," they're using this number or a derivative of it. The afternoon (PM) fix is the more-watched of the two.
Why people buy gold
Gold has no cash flow, no dividends, no interest, no utility beyond decoration and a few industrial uses. Its price is determined entirely by what someone else will pay. So why is it the world's longest-running financial asset (5,000+ years)? Three reasons. Inflation hedge: gold tends to hold purchasing power across decades while paper money loses it. Crisis hedge: gold has no counterparty risk (unlike bonds or bank deposits) — it's the asset of last resort when systems break. Central bank demand: foreign central banks (China, India, Russia, Turkey) have been net buyers since 2010 as part of strategies to diversify away from the U.S. dollar.
Reading this chart
Gold's all-time high inflation-adjusted is actually 1980 ($850 nominal ≈ $2,950 in today's dollars), not today's nominal high. The post-2020 rally has been driven by central bank buying (record levels in 2022–24), real interest rates, and geopolitical uncertainty. Today's $2,418/oz is just below the May 2026 all-time nominal high of $2,425. Over the past 20 years gold has returned roughly 8% annualized — well below the S&P 500's 10–11% but with very different risk characteristics.
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Frequently asked
What this number means, and what it doesn't.
Troy ounces (31.1 grams) are the standard for precious metals dating back to medieval France. Regular ("avoirdupois") ounces are 28.35 grams. The difference matters: a "1 oz gold coin" weighs more than a 1 oz steak. When you see gold prices in news, they're always troy ounces.
No. The spot price is what futures traders see. Physical gold coins and bars typically sell for 3–8% above spot (the "premium") due to minting and dealer costs. Gold ETFs like GLD trade within pennies of spot but charge an annual management fee (0.40% for GLD).
Higher real interest rates (rates minus inflation) typically hurt gold because gold pays no yield — so opportunity cost rises. Lower or negative real rates support gold prices. The 2020–22 negative-real-rate environment was rocket fuel for gold.
In nominal terms, no — today is the nominal all-time high. But in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, gold's $850 January 1980 high is roughly $2,950 in 2026 dollars. So in inflation-adjusted terms, gold has not yet broken its 1980 record.
About 212,000 tonnes have been mined throughout human history — enough to fill a cube roughly 22 meters on each side. About half is jewelry, ~22% bullion/coins, ~17% central banks, ~12% industrial. Annual mine production adds ~3,500 tonnes (1.6% supply growth).
Methodology
Source
Pulled from Stooq · XAUUSD and cached on the EvvyTools server.
Update schedule
Refreshed automatically by our cron whenever the upstream source publishes a new value. Historical values are not revised after publication.
How we compute
Display value is the raw published number, unrounded. Comparison stats use the closest available reference date. We never edit the underlying data.