Price & Market

The ask price is the price at which a dealer or market maker sells a precious metal - the lowest price at which a buyer can purchase immediately in the market.

Backwardation is a market condition in which the spot price of a commodity sits above the forward price — a signal of acute physical scarcity.

The base price is the standardised reference price of a precious metal on which premiums, dealer margins and option contracts are built.

The bid price is the price a dealer or market maker is willing to pay for a precious metal — that is, the buying price from the seller's point of view.

The buying price is the amount a dealer or refinery pays a private seller for precious metals — it always sits below the prevailing spot price.

The COMEX (Commodity Exchange) is the world's most important futures exchange for gold and silver futures and the leading price-reference market for physical precious metals.

Contango describes a market situation in which the forward price of a commodity sits above the current spot price.

The dealer selling price is the price at which a precious-metals dealer sells a product to the buyer — it always sits above the spot price and includes minting or refining costs, the dealer margin and any VAT.

Euwax Gold II is a physically backed gold ETC issued by the Stuttgart Stock Exchange that grants a direct claim to delivery of real gold; it is a German product and is not sold on the Irish market.

The Fear and Greed Index is a composite sentiment gauge that measures, on a scale from 0 (extreme fear) to 100 (extreme greed), how strongly fear or buying euphoria is driving current market behaviour.

The spot price is the continuously traded market price for immediate delivery, whereas the fixing is a reference price set only once (or twice) a day.

A future is a standardised forward contract obliging buyer and seller to deliver or take delivery of a set quantity of a precious metal at a price agreed today for a future date.

A gold ETF (exchange-traded fund) is a stock-market-listed fund that mirrors the gold price, letting investors gain exposure to gold's performance without holding the metal directly.

Gold market seasonality refers to recurring, calendar-driven patterns in the gold price that arise from cyclical shifts in demand across key regions.

The gold-silver ratio shows how many ounces of silver it takes to buy one ounce of gold — a widely watched gauge of the two metals' relative value.

A trading strategy in which investors switch gold for silver (or the reverse) when the price ratio between the two metals reaches historically extreme levels.

The LBMA Fixing is a reference price for gold and silver set twice daily in London that is used worldwide as the binding benchmark for trading, mining contracts and financial products.

The London Fix is a reference price for gold, silver, platinum and palladium set twice a day, coordinated by the LBMA and used worldwide as the settlement basis for physical precious-metal transactions.

Paper gold is the collective term for gold-linked financial products such as ETFs, ETCs, futures or certificates that track the gold price without giving the holder direct ownership of the physical metal, even though certain instruments (for example Xetra-Gold) do carry a right to physical delivery.

The premium is the surcharge over the spot price that buyers pay, on top of the pure metal value, when acquiring physical precious-metal products such as coins or bars.

The premium (agio) is the amount by which the selling price of a precious-metal coin or bar exceeds the current metal value (spot price).

A silver ETF (exchange-traded fund) is a fund traded on a stock exchange that tracks the price of silver, letting investors gain exposure without buying or storing physical metal themselves.

The tax-driven surcharge on silver is the part of the purchase price a buyer pays over and above the pure metal value, because investment silver carries VAT in Ireland whereas investment gold does not.

The spot market is the marketplace for immediate delivery of precious metals at the currently prevailing cash price.

The spot price is the current market price for immediate delivery of one troy ounce of precious metal — the basis for almost every buying and selling price.

The spot rate is the currently valid market price of a precious metal for immediate delivery and payment, also known as the spot price.

The spread is the difference between the buying price (bid) and the selling price (ask) of a precious metal, and it represents the dealer's implicit trading margin.

The interplay of supply (mine production, recycling, central-bank sales) and demand (jewellery, industry, investment) is the main driver of precious-metal prices.

Volatility measures how intensely a price fluctuates over a defined period and is the central gauge of the market risk carried by an asset.

Xetra-Gold is an exchange-traded note (ETC) issued by Deutsche Boerse Commodities GmbH that is physically backed by gold and grants investors a securitised claim to delivery of real gold.