Live gold price (XAU/USD)

What the spot number is and how it is set

The spot price is the price of one troy ounce of gold for immediate delivery, quoted in US dollars and shown here around 4275.0. It is assembled from the interbank market and the major futures and OTC venues where gold trades continuously, then aggregated into a single reference. It is a mid-market figure, meaning it sits between the price at which you could buy and the price at which you could sell.

Because it is an aggregate, the spot reference is not a promise that any broker will deal at that exact number. It is the centre of the market, and your broker's executable price is built around it. Use it to understand where gold is, to compare against your chart levels, and to feed the calculators, rather than as a quote you can transact on.

Why the broker's price differs from the reference

The price you can trade differs from the spot reference because of the spread, the gap between the bid and the ask. When you buy gold you pay the ask; when you sell you receive the bid. The spot mid sits between them, so your entry is always slightly worse than the reference you saw. That difference is a real cost of the trade, and it is wider when liquidity is thin.

The spread is not fixed. It depends on the venue, the time of day, the size you are trading and how volatile the market is at that moment. Around major US data releases the gap between bid and ask can widen sharply, and it can widen further in the minutes around the daily rollover. That is why the price you see before an event is not the price you should assume you will get during it.

How to read the change and the refresh

The change figure shows how far gold has moved from a prior reference point, usually the previous session's close, and the refresh keeps it current. Read the change as direction and magnitude, not as a prediction: a large move already happened, and it tells you volatility is elevated, not where the next tick goes. A flat change in a quiet session tells you the opposite.

Refresh the price before you use any calculator, because the margin and pip figures depend on the current level. If you are checking a trade during a fast session, note the time of the reading and expect the executable price to sit away from it. The reference is a planning input, and the dealing price is what your broker shows at the moment you click.

How this price feeds the calculators

The live price feeds the profit and loss and margin calculators, which need a current level to convert points into money. Pip value for gold is fixed by the contract, not the price: one pip is 0.01, and one standard lot is 100 ounces, so a one-pip move is worth one dollar per standard lot before your account currency is applied. The live price matters for the dollar value of the position and the margin it requires.

For a South African account, the calculators convert the dollar result into rand at the prevailing USD/ZAR rate, so the output reflects what actually lands in your account. That conversion is why the same gold trade can show a different rand result on two different days even if XAU/USD has not moved. Check the price, then check the currency, then size the trade.

Where the gold price on this page comes from and what its latency means

The number on this page is a spot reference for XAU/USD pulled from market data feeds and refreshed on a short cycle, not a live tradeable quote from your own account. Around 4275.0 at the time of writing, it reflects where gold is changing hands between market makers and liquidity providers. Latency means the figure you see is always a snapshot of a moment that has already passed, typically by seconds rather than milliseconds, so treat it as orientation rather than an execution price.

Latency matters most when gold is moving quickly. A feed that lags even briefly can show 4275.0 while the interbank market has already printed a few cents either side, and on a 100 oz standard lot every 0.01 move in XAU/USD is worth about $1. If you size a position or set a level from this page and then place the order elsewhere, you are acting on older information than the broker holding your order. The gap between what you saw and what you get is the cost of that delay.

What latency does not do is change the direction of the market or tell you anything about where price is going. It only tells you how far behind the displayed figure may be. For any decision that depends on the exact price, confirm it on the platform you will actually trade on, whether that is MT4, MT5, cTrader or FxPro Edge, because the quote that fills your order comes from there and not from a reference page.

Why the FxPro quote on your platform is not the same as a reference price

A broker's quote differs from a reference price because it is built from the broker's own liquidity and pricing model, not copied from a public feed. FxPro streams prices from its liquidity providers and applies its own handling, so the number you see on MT4, MT5, cTrader or FxPro Edge is the price at which that entity is prepared to deal with you. A reference page aggregates the wider market, which is a different thing from one firm's offer. For South African clients the account sits with FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and that entity's pricing is what applies to your trades.

The difference also comes from timing. Each source samples the market at its own moment, so a reference at 4275.0 and a platform quote a second later can sit a few cents apart without either being wrong. Gold is quoted to 0.01, and on 100 oz per standard lot that cent is $1, so small-looking differences are real money at size. Neither figure is the truth; both are estimates of a market that never stands still.

Finally, the broker quote carries the cost structure of dealing with that firm. What that structure consists of depends on the account type and the instrument, and it is disclosed in the broker's own documentation rather than on a reference page. The practical point is simple: use this page to understand where gold is, and use your platform to see what you can actually trade at.

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

Bid is the price at which you can sell and ask is the price at which you can buy; the gap between them is the spread, and it is the first cost you meet on every gold trade. On XAU/USD the two numbers sit either side of the mid, which is roughly what a reference page shows. If the mid is near 4275.0, the bid is below it and the ask above it. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so a position starts slightly against you the moment it opens.

What the gap consists of depends on the broker's pricing model and the conditions at the time. It is not a fixed number, and it widens when liquidity thins, when volatility rises, and around scheduled events. On a standard lot of 100 oz, each 0.01 of spread equals about $1, so the width of the gap translates directly into rand cost at your account's conversion rate. That is why the same 0.10-lot position can feel different on a quiet Tuesday than during a news release.

Reading bid and ask correctly also means knowing which one your order will touch. A buy limit fills at the ask, a sell limit at the bid, and stop orders trigger on the side the market is moving toward. When you compare this page's single reference number to your platform, remember the platform shows two prices, and your trade happens at one of them, not at the middle.

What a stale gold quote looks like and how to respond to it

A stale quote is one that has stopped updating while the market has moved on, and it usually shows as a price that sits unchanged while everything around it shifts. On a gold platform you might see the bid and ask frozen at the same values through a burst of activity, or a chart that flatlines while related instruments keep moving. The reference figure on this page can also lag: if the timestamp or refresh indicator has not advanced, treat the number as historical rather than current.

The practical response is to stop relying on the frozen figure and check a second source before acting. Refresh the page or the platform, compare the quote against another feed, and if the two still disagree sharply, assume the market has moved and your display has not caught up. Never place a market order against a price you suspect is stale, because the fill will happen at whatever the live book shows, which may be well away from what you saw.

Stale quotes are most likely during fast moves, around rollover, and at the edges of the trading week. They are a display problem rather than a market problem, but they cause real losses when treated as current. If a quote looks wrong, wait for it to update or contact the broker's support, and keep position sizes modest enough that a surprise gap does not decide the outcome for you.

How often this gold figure refreshes and what to check when it lags

This page refreshes on a short cycle, so the XAU/USD reference you see is updated frequently through the trading day rather than once. The exact interval depends on the data feed behind it, but the principle is that each refresh replaces the previous snapshot with a newer one. Between refreshes the number is fixed, which means it can be a few seconds old even when it looks live. Check the timestamp or update indicator before you rely on the figure for anything precise.

A lagging figure shows itself in a few ways. The number may stay identical across several refreshes while gold is visibly moving elsewhere, or the update indicator may stall while the page still displays an old value. On a fast day, a reference that has not changed in a noticeable stretch is a warning sign rather than a quiet market. Gold at 4275.0 that refuses to budge while your platform shows movement is a display lag, not a trading opportunity.

When the figure lags, fall back to the platform you trade on and to the broker's own quote, because that is what your order will fill against. Refresh the page, compare against a second source, and if the discrepancy persists, treat the reference as unavailable rather than as current. The refresh rate is a convenience, not a guarantee, and no reference page should be the sole input to a live order.

Spot reference versus tradeable quote, and how gold prices behave at weekends and holidays

A spot reference and a tradeable quote are different instruments of information: the reference tells you where the market is, while the tradeable quote is the price at which one firm will actually deal with you. This page shows the former, near 4275.0 at the time of writing. Your platform shows the latter, including the bid and ask your order will meet. Confusing the two leads to expectations that do not survive contact with execution, especially when the market is moving or thin.

Gold trades on a global schedule that runs through the week, and pricing behaviour changes at the edges of it. Around the weekend close and the Monday reopen, and on public holidays in the major markets, liquidity thins and quotes can gap from where they left off. A reference page may show a figure that reflects the last available print rather than an active market, and a broker may widen its quote or restrict new orders during those windows.

During those periods, treat any single number with caution and check whether the market is genuinely open before acting. The gap between Friday's close and Monday's open can be larger than a normal day's range, and a position held through it carries risk that no reference page displays. Confirm trading hours and any holiday schedule with FxPro, and size positions so a weekend gap cannot force an exit you did not choose.