Live gold price (XAU/USD)

What the spot number actually is

The spot price is the current market price for one troy ounce of gold for immediate delivery, quoted in US dollars as XAU/USD. It is set by continuous trading across global venues, so it moves whenever buyers and sellers agree on a new level, which is why it can change several times a minute.

A reference level around 4275.0 is useful for building examples, but it is a snapshot, not a fixed rate. Every calculator on this site takes the current price as an input, so the output reflects the market at the moment you run it rather than a stale figure.

Why your broker's price differs from spot

Your broker's gold quote differs from the raw spot market because it includes the spread, which is the gap between the bid and the ask. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so the spread is a cost you pay on entry and it depends on the account type, the platform and market conditions.

The spread is not the only difference. The entity serving your account prices gold from its own liquidity arrangements, so quotes can differ slightly between brokers and between account types. That is why the same market move can show a different profit or loss on two statements.

How to read the change and refresh

The change figure shows how far the price has moved from a previous reference, usually the prior close or the start of the session, and the refresh shows when the page last updated. Read both together: a large change on a slow refresh is a stale number, not a fast market.

Use the price as a working reference, not a signal. If you are about to size a trade, re-read the current quote and re-run the position-size calculator, because gold can move enough in minutes to change the margin and risk figures.

How this price feeds the calculators

The live price is the input that connects the five calculators. Position size uses the distance between your entry and stop in dollars, pip value uses the 0.01 pip definition, margin uses the contract size of 100 oz per lot, and profit or loss uses the difference between entry and exit.

Because one standard lot is 100 oz, a one-dollar move in gold is worth $100 per lot before costs. That single relationship is why the calculators ask for lot size and price together, and why a small change in the quote can shift the rand outcome of a trade.

Where this gold price comes from and what its latency means for your order

This page shows a delayed reference price for XAU/USD taken from an aggregated feed of institutional spot quotes, not from the order book of the broker you trade with. The number is a snapshot that has already travelled through data vendors and servers before it reaches this page, so it lags the live market by seconds or minutes depending on the feed. Treat it as an orientation point for the gold price in rand terms, not as a quote you can trade against.

Latency matters because gold moves in ticks of 0.01, and a handful of those ticks can pass while a delayed number sits on your screen. If you base a market order on this figure, the price at which the order fills will be whatever the broker's live book shows at that moment, which may be several dollars away. Use the page to understand direction and context, then confirm the actual tradeable price inside your platform before you click buy or sell.

The practical effect is that this reference is useful for planning, not for execution. A 0.10-lot gold position controls 10 oz, and at a reference price near 4275.0 each 0.01 move is worth about $0.10, so a lag of even a few cents changes your expected entry. Check the broker's own quote for the fill, and check margin requirements separately: at up to 1:200 retail leverage, that 0.10-lot position needs roughly $85.50 margin, which is a cap, not a target to use.

Why a broker's quote differs from a reference price

A broker's quote differs from a reference price because it is built from that broker's own liquidity and cost structure, not from a single public benchmark. The quote you see on MT4, MT5, cTrader or FxPro Edge includes the raw market price plus the firm's markup, and it reflects the depth available to that broker at that moment. Two firms can show different numbers for the same second on XAU/USD and both can be honest, because each is quoting its own tradeable market.

The difference also depends on the instrument and the time of day. Gold is quoted in US dollars, so a South African trader funding in rand through local cards, bank transfers or e-wallets is also exposed to the USD/ZAR rate the broker applies when converting. The reference price on this page is a USD figure; your account may show the same metal in rand, and the gap between the two includes the conversion the broker uses, which is not the same as an interbank rate.

Finally, a broker quote carries the cost of doing business: the spread, any commission on the account type, and the financing or swap applied to positions held overnight. None of those are visible in a bare reference price. When you compare this page with your platform, expect the tradeable quote to sit away from the reference in a direction and size that depend on the broker's liquidity and fees, and read the contract specifications for the account you actually hold.

Bid, ask and the gap between them on XAU/USD

Bid is the price at which you can sell, ask is the price at which you can buy, and the gap between them is the spread you pay to enter a trade. On gold the quote is normally shown as two numbers, for example bid 4274.90 and ask 4275.10, and the difference is expressed in pips where one pip equals 0.01. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so a new position starts slightly behind the mid price by design.

The size of that gap is not fixed and is not something this page can state for your account. It depends on the broker, the account type, the time of day and the liquidity available in XAU/USD at that moment. Around major news releases or when the market is thin, the gap can widen; in quieter conditions it can narrow. What matters for your planning is that the spread is a real cost, charged on entry, and it applies to every lot you trade.

For a 0.10-lot position, one pip on gold is worth $0.10 because 0.10 lot equals 10 oz and one pip is 0.01 of a dollar per ounce. That means a two-pip gap costs about $0.20 to cross on that size, before any commission. Scale that to a 1.00 standard lot, which is 100 oz, and each pip is $1.00. Check the live bid and ask in your platform rather than assuming a number, and remember that leverage does not remove the spread, it only changes the margin.

What a stale quote looks like and how to handle it

A stale quote looks frozen: the bid and ask stop changing while the market around them is clearly moving, or the timestamp on the feed stops advancing. On a live page you may see the same price persist through a period when related assets such as the dollar index or US yields are shifting. A stale number is not a bargain; it is a picture of a market that the feed is no longer capturing accurately, and treating it as tradeable is how slippage surprises happen.

The cause is usually a data interruption, a quiet session, or a platform that has lost its connection to the pricing server. Before acting, refresh the page and compare the figure with the quote inside your trading platform. If the two disagree by more than the normal gap, trust the platform, because that is where your order will be executed. If the platform itself looks frozen, reconnect or contact the broker's support rather than sending an order into an unknown book.

For South African traders, the risk is greatest outside the London and New York sessions, when gold liquidity thins and a stale reference can sit unchanged for longer. A market order sent against a stale quote can fill at a very different price once the feed catches up. Use limit orders where possible, size positions so that a gap does not threaten your balance, and keep in mind that leverage of up to 1:200 retail is a cap on margin, not protection against a bad fill.

How often this gold figure refreshes and how to spot a stale one

This page refreshes at a fixed interval set by the data feed behind it, not on every tick of the underlying market. The exact cadence depends on the vendor and can change, so the honest answer is that the figure updates periodically rather than continuously. That is why you may see the number jump by several cents at once instead of ticking smoothly. The refresh rate is a property of the page, while the broker's platform streams its own quote much more frequently.

You can spot a stale figure by watching the change indicator and the clock. If the price has not moved across several expected refresh cycles, or if the displayed change no longer matches the direction shown by your platform, treat the page as out of date. A quick cross-check against a second independent source helps: if two references agree and this page does not, the page is the one lagging. Do not assume a static number means the market is closed.

The practical routine is simple: glance at this page for context, then confirm in MT4, MT5, cTrader or FxPro Edge before you trade. The platform quote is the one your order fills against, and it carries the spread and any commission that this reference does not show. If you are funding in rand through a local card, bank transfer or e-wallet, also allow for the broker's conversion, which can make your effective entry differ from the USD figure on screen.

Weekend and holiday pricing for XAU/USD

Gold does not trade continuously over the weekend, so any price shown during that window is either the last quote before the Friday close or an indicative level from a feed that is not executing orders. The market reopens on Sunday evening or Monday depending on the session, and the first tradeable quote can gap away from the Friday close. A weekend number on this page is therefore a record of where the metal finished, not a promise of where it will open.

Public holidays in the major trading centres also thin liquidity, and the effect depends on which market is closed. On a US holiday, dollar-denominated gold can still trade but with fewer participants, and the gap between bid and ask may be wider than usual. The exact schedule is set by the venues and the broker, so check the platform's market hours rather than assuming a holiday means no trading. A closed session and a quiet session look different on a live quote.

For positions held over a weekend or holiday, the risk is gap risk: the market can reopen beyond your stop, and the fill will be at the first available price rather than the level you set. That is a separate risk from leverage, which at up to 1:200 retail only determines the margin held. Size a 0.10-lot gold position so that a weekend gap does not wipe out your buffer, and remember that financing charges for held positions depend on the broker's terms, not on this page.