Who Sets the Price of Gold? London, New York, Shanghai and the Number on Your Screen

Gold’s benchmark prices come from three markets: an electronic auction in London twice a day, futures in New York and an auction in yuan in Shanghai. We explain how each is set, from the administrators’ own rules, why the “spot price” on a screen is none of them, and why none of them is the price of a coin.

Published October 18, 2026 · 16 min read

Key Takeaways

• The LBMA Gold Price is set by an electronic auction that ICE Benchmark Administration runs at 10:30 and 15:00 London time, in 30-second rounds until buying and selling are within 10,000 oz. On 30 September 2026 it set $4,188.75 and $4,176.30 an ounce; the LBMA Silver Price, set once at noon, was $60.73.
• COMEX gold futures, contracts for 100 oz, trade 23 hours a day and settle once, on trades between 13:29 and 13:30 New York time. This site’s ticker is Yahoo Finance’s GC=F quote, the December contract in October 2026; when we priced dealers on 30 September it stood 0.6% to 0.7% above spot.
• The Shanghai Gold Benchmark is set at 10:15 and 15:00 Beijing time, in yuan per gram for 1 kg bars: ¥902.68 and ¥907.50 on 30 September 2026.
• Converted at the Federal Reserve’s noon rate, Shanghai’s afternoon price sat above London’s morning price on all 13 days we could compare from 15 September to 9 October 2026, by $9.88 to $37.65 an ounce (0.23% to 0.88%).
• None of these is a coin’s price: on 30 September 2026 a single 1 oz Maple Leaf or Eagle cost 3.5% to 6% over spot at three dealers, $145 to $249 at that evening’s spot, several times the Shanghai–London gap.

On 30 September 2026 gold was given four official prices, two in yuan and two in dollars, all of them by mid-morning in New York. Shanghai’s sessions at 10:15 and 15:00 Beijing time set ¥902.68 and ¥907.50 a gram. London’s auctions, starting at 10:30 and 15:00, set $4,188.75 and $4,176.30 an ounce. New York’s futures market added its own settlement price that afternoon, for gold to be delivered in a later month. And that evening a single 1 oz Maple Leaf or Eagle cost 3.5% to 6% more than spot at the three dealers we checked. So who sets the price of gold? Three markets do, each at its own hour, Shanghai in its own currency and unit, and none of them sets the price of a coin.

This explainer takes the three in turn: London’s twice-daily auction, New York’s futures, and Shanghai’s benchmark in yuan. It then shows why the “spot price” on a screen is none of them, and how far all of them sit from what a coin costs. Prices are in US dollars per troy ounce unless they are marked as yuan per gram.

Who Actually Sets the LBMA Gold Price?

No single person or bank sets the LBMA Gold Price: it is the price at which buying and selling balance in an electronic auction that ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) runs at 10:30 and 15:00 London time. The auction trades unallocated gold held in London, for settlement two business days later, which is what the market calls spot. Its results are published as the LBMA Gold Price AM and PM. Silver has one auction a day, at noon, which sets the LBMA Silver Price: $60.73 an ounce on 30 September.

The mechanics are short. For 30 minutes before the start, in what IBA calls Round Zero, participants queue orders without a price. Then IBA’s algorithm, which takes account of market conditions and the orders already entered, opens a round with a price, and participants have 30 seconds to say how much they would buy or sell at it. If buying and selling are more than 10,000 ounces apart (the usual threshold), the price moves and a new round starts. When they come within that threshold the auction ends, the last round’s price becomes the benchmark, and any ounces left over are shared equally among the direct participants. Silver’s threshold is 500,000 ounces. The price is formed in dollars and converted to sterling and euros at the exchange rates of the moment the final round ended. Because an auction lasts as many rounds as it needs, the benchmark has no fixed publication time.

IBA’s list of current participants, across its gold, silver, platinum and palladium auctions, names 18 direct and 5 indirect participants. Among them are JPMorgan, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, Standard Chartered, ICBC Standard Bank, the London branch of Bank of China, Toronto-Dominion Bank, StoneX and Jane Street. An auction needs at least three participants logged on, two of them direct; without them IBA can delay it or abandon it. IBA has administered the gold price since March 2015, when the electronic auction replaced the London Gold Fixing that began in 1919; it took over silver in October 2017, and platinum and palladium in July 2026. The prices are used as reference prices by producers, investors, banks and central banks, fabricators and jewellers: when our article on September’s fall records gold finishing the month at $4,176, the figure matches the London afternoon price of 30 September, $4,176.30, rounded.

One trading day, on London’s clock

• 03:15 London Shanghai Gold Benchmark, morning: 10:15 in Beijing; 7:15 p.m. the evening before in Vancouver. Yuan per gram, set by auction on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
• 08:00 London Shanghai Gold Benchmark, afternoon: 15:00 in Beijing; midnight in Vancouver. The session moved from 14:15 to 15:00 on 16 September 2019.
• 10:30 London LBMA Gold Price AM: 2:30 a.m. in Vancouver. IBA’s auction for spot gold in London, in US dollars per troy ounce.
• 12:00 London LBMA Silver Price: 4 a.m. in Vancouver. Silver’s only auction of the day.
• 15:00 London LBMA Gold Price PM: 7 a.m. in Vancouver and 10 a.m. in New York. The afternoon auction.
• 18:30 London COMEX gold settlement: 13:30 in New York; 10:30 a.m. in Vancouver. The day’s settlement price for the most active futures contract, from trades in the minute before.
• 22:00–23:00 London COMEX’s one-hour break: 5–6 p.m. in New York; 2–3 p.m. in Vancouver. Gold futures trade the other 23 hours, from Sunday evening to Friday afternoon New York time.

What Is the “Spot Price” on a Screen, If Not the Auction?

The spot price on a dealer’s website or a news ticker is a live quote, not an auction result. It is the price at which gold is trading at that moment for settlement two business days later, and it moves with every trade. In London, the firms that make the market are required to quote each other prices on request throughout the London business day; outside those hours, and between the two auctions, the quote keeps moving with trading in the over-the-counter market and on futures exchanges. The LBMA Gold Price records where an auction cleared, twice a day. A screen’s spot price is a running estimate of where a large trade would happen now.

Some screens show a futures price under the spot label, and this site is one of them. The gold price in our header and on our live gold price page is Yahoo Finance’s quote for COMEX gold futures, symbol GC=F, which in October 2026 is the December contract, refreshed every five minutes; our methodology says so. A contract for a later month usually trades a little above spot, mainly because a buyer who pays on delivery keeps the money in the meantime. When we priced dealers on 30 September 2026, the futures price stood 0.6% to 0.7% above spot gold. That is why our dealer comparison measures every premium against spot in the minute the dealer’s price was read, and not against our own ticker.

What Does New York’s COMEX Actually Set?

COMEX, part of CME Group, sets a futures price: the price of a contract for 100 troy ounces of gold, of at least 995 fineness, to be delivered in a later month. It trades on CME Globex from 6 p.m. to 5 p.m. New York time, Sunday evening to Friday, with a 60-minute break each day. Once a day CME staff set a settlement price for the most active contract from the volume-weighted average of trades between 13:29 and 13:30 New York time. The active contract is the nearest of February, April, June, August, October and December that is not the spot month, and it hands over on that month’s first position date; in October 2026 it is December’s.

The positions in those futures are public: our chart of CFTC positioning shows each week how each category of trader is positioned in COMEX gold futures. Whether that trading helps set the price or distorts it is an old argument. Andy Schectman, who owns the bullion dealer Miles Franklin, holds that paper markets have been used to suppress price discovery; Jeffrey Christian of the research firm CPM Group has spent years disputing claims of long-running suppression. One case stands out: on 29 September 2020 the CFTC ordered JPMorgan to pay $920.2 million, a record by the regulator’s own description, after traders on its precious metals and Treasuries desks spent about eight years, from 2008 to 2016, placing hundreds of thousands of orders in precious metals and Treasury futures that they meant to cancel before they were filled. That is spoofing, manipulation of the order book over short periods, which Christian distinguishes from the decades-long suppression the theory describes.

How Is the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Set?

The Shanghai Gold Exchange sets the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price twice each trading day, at 10:15 and 15:00 Beijing time, in yuan per gram, for 1 kg bars of at least 99.99% gold delivered in Shanghai two days later. Its auction works along the same lines as London’s, with differences in how it opens, how long the rounds last and how the imbalance is measured. In the minutes before each session, the exchange’s fixing members and reference-price members each submit a price; if at least half of them do, the exchange drops the highest and the lowest and averages the rest to get the opening price. Rounds then run, 60 seconds plus 10 for the first and 30 plus 10 after, until buying and selling are within 400 kg, and any imbalance left is shared among the fixing members. At its launch on 19 April 2016 the fixing members were 12 Chinese and foreign commercial banks, and the first price was ¥256.92 a gram. On 14 October 2026 it was ¥897.50 in the morning and ¥894.58 in the afternoon. The exchange sets a Shanghai Silver Benchmark the same way, in yuan per kilogram, at 9:45 and 14:30.

Why Is Shanghai’s Gold Price Different From London’s?

Shanghai’s gold price can differ from London’s because it is a price in yuan for gold that is already in China, and bringing more metal in costs money: a gap can open when buyers there want more than is on hand, and it can last until importing pays. On the 13 days from 15 September to 9 October 2026 that can be compared, the gap ran one way. To compare the two, the Shanghai price has to be converted: yuan per gram, times the 31.1034768 grams in a troy ounce, divided by the yuan in a dollar.

13 of 13 trading days on which Shanghai’s afternoon gold price, in dollars, sat above London’s morning price. 15 September to 9 October 2026, by $9.88 to $37.65 an ounce. Shanghai Gold Exchange, LBMA and the Federal Reserve; GoldSilverPortfolio arithmetic.

A gap of $20 on a $4,200 ounce is about half of one per cent. The markets stay close because metal and money can move between them, at a cost, and a gap wider than that cost is an opportunity for anyone able to move the metal. What a persistent gap says is local: Shanghai’s benchmark, converted to dollars, was above London’s morning price on all 13 of those days, the same direction as the slight onshore premium an analyst described to Bloomberg in September, which our article on China’s record imports reports.

Why Is None of These the Price You Pay for a Coin?

Every benchmark is a wholesale price: for unallocated metal in London, 100 oz contracts in New York, kilogram bars in Shanghai. A dealer selling a single coin or small bar adds a premium over spot for minting, shipping, insuring and selling it, and buys back below its selling price. On 30 September 2026 a single 1 oz Maple Leaf or Eagle, paid by cheque or wire, cost 3.5% to 6% over spot at Kitco, Sprott Money and SD Bullion. At that evening’s spot price, about $4,156, that is $145 to $249 on one coin, against a Shanghai–London gap of $21.32 that day.

Our guide to premiums and spreads explains what goes into that figure and why it moves, and the dealer comparison shows the latest premium we have recorded for each coin and bar at each dealer, with the date it was read. The premium calculator turns a dealer’s quote into its premium over spot.

The Bigger Picture

The question “who sets the price of gold?” has a plain answer and a useful one. The plain answer is that no one does: a list of about two dozen firms in London’s auctions, the traders in New York’s futures market and an exchange’s members in Shanghai each find the price at which buying and selling balance, at different hours, and the three stay within a fraction of a per cent of one another. The useful answer is that the price you deal at is set by none of them. It is the dealer’s ask when you buy and the dealer’s bid when you sell, and on the day we measured it the premium alone, 3.5% to 6% on a single coin, was several times the widest gap between London and Shanghai in these weeks. Knowing which price a figure is, and when it was set, is the first step to knowing what you actually paid.

Sources and Methodology

The London rules, times, thresholds and participant list are from ICE Benchmark Administration’s calculation methodology and gold auction specification (both January 2026), its benchmark statement (last updated 1 July 2026) and its participant list as read on 14 October 2026; the description of the London market’s market makers is from LBMA’s guide to the loco London market. The New York contract and settlement rules are from CME Group’s contract specifications and its daily settlement procedure for gold, read on 14 October 2026. The Shanghai rules are from the Shanghai Gold Exchange’s 2016 white paper, its amended benchmark trading rules of 2019 and its notice of 5 September 2019, which moved the afternoon session to 15:00 from 16 September 2019. Daily prices are LBMA’s published LBMA Gold Price AM and PM and LBMA Silver Price, and the Shanghai Gold Exchange’s published benchmark prices. Shanghai prices are converted at the Federal Reserve’s noon buying rate for the yuan in New York, published through FRED, which reached 9 October 2026 when this article was prepared; the converted price is set against the LBMA Gold Price AM, the London price nearest in time. The futures-to-spot gap and the coin premiums are our own readings of 30 September 2026, as recorded for our dealer comparison: one coin, by cheque or wire, against the midpoint of Kitco’s spot bid and ask in the same minute. Where this site’s price comes from was checked in its own code.

Conflicts of interest: ICE Benchmark Administration is part of Intercontinental Exchange, which runs futures exchanges; CME Group earns fees from futures trading; the Shanghai Gold Exchange runs the market whose benchmark it sets. Andy Schectman owns a bullion dealer, and Jeffrey Christian’s CPM Group sells research and advice on the metals markets. The dealers whose premiums we quote sell bullion. SilverGoldBull, one of the dealers on our comparison page, pays us an affiliate commission; its premiums are not among the figures used here.

Primary sources

• ICE Benchmark Administration — “LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price: Calculation Methodology” (January 2026) and “IBA Gold Auction Specification” (January 2026)
• ICE Benchmark Administration — “LBMA Precious Metals Prices: Benchmark Statement” (last updated 1 July 2026)
• ICE Benchmark Administration — “LBMA Gold and Silver Price”, current auction participants (read 14 October 2026)
• LBMA — LBMA Gold Price AM and PM and LBMA Silver Price, daily prices, 15 September to 14 October 2026
• LBMA — “A Guide to the Loco London Precious Metals Market” (2017), chapter 2, “London Bullion Market Association”
• CME Group — “Gold Futures Contract Specs”, and “Gold”, the daily settlement procedure on the CME Group Client Systems Wiki (both read 14 October 2026)
• Shanghai Gold Exchange — “Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price White Paper” (April 2016) and the Shanghai Gold (SHAU) contract parameter table
• Shanghai Gold Exchange — “Detailed Rules of the Shanghai Gold Exchange on Benchmark Price Trading (Amended)” (2019), Annex 2, and the notice on amending the centralised pricing rules and the Shanghai Silver trial (5 September 2019)
• Shanghai Gold Exchange — daily Shanghai Gold Benchmark Prices, 15 September to 14 October 2026
• Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — noon buying rate, Chinese yuan to one US dollar (DEXCHUS, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), 15 September to 9 October 2026
• Commodity Futures Trading Commission — “CFTC Orders JPMorgan to Pay Record $920 Million for Spoofing and Manipulation” (29 September 2020)
• GoldSilverPortfolio — dealer comparison: premiums and the futures-to-spot gap recorded 30 September 2026 (Kitco, Sprott Money and SD Bullion)