COMEX
Also: Commodity Exchange, NYMEX COMEX
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.
The COMEX (Commodity Exchange) is a division of the CME Group in New York and is regarded as the most important price-formation market for gold and silver futures. Although it is a futures market, the worldwide spot price for gold and silver is heavily guided by the contracts traded there. Each day the COMEX turns over more troy ounces of gold on paper than the entire global mine output of a full year — which underlines just how central this market is to price discovery.
History and context
The COMEX was founded in New York in 1933 and merged in 1994 with the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). In 2008 the CME Group took over both exchanges. Trading today runs on the electronic CME Globex platform, giving near-continuous round-the-clock availability.
How COMEX futures work
A COMEX futures contract is a binding agreement to buy or sell a set quantity of precious metal at a price fixed today, for delivery on a future date. The standard contract sizes are:
| Metal | Contract size | Deliverable fineness |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 100 troy ounces | min. 995/1000 |
| Silver | 5,000 troy ounces | min. 999/1000 |
| Copper | 25,000 pounds | electrolytic copper |
In practice more than 99 % of all contracts are closed out before maturity (that is, cancelled by an offsetting contract) — physical delivery is the rare exception. Even so, the right to take physical delivery is decisive for keeping the price anchored to the real market.
COMEX price vs. spot price
The relationship between COMEX futures and the spot price can be shown in simplified form:
Spot price ≈ nearest futures price − carrying costs (cost of carry)
The "carrying costs" cover storage fees, insurance and the interest forgone on the tied-up capital. When the futures price sits above the spot price, the market is in contango; when it sits below, in backwardation.
What it means for private investors
Although private investors rarely trade on the COMEX directly, it shapes every purchase:
- Price discovery: the gold price and silver price quoted by dealers and banks derive directly from COMEX quotations.
- Paper-gold vehicles: gold ETCs, certificates and unallocated accounts often draw their value from COMEX prices.
- Arbitrage coupling: large dealers ensure through arbitrage that physical wholesale prices and COMEX prices stay close together.
- Volatility: position shifts by big speculators (so-called "managed money") can produce substantial short-term price swings without anything changing in physical supply.
Anyone buying physical precious metal or watching the current market state will find up-to-date data on this site at all times; the historical precious-metal prices also show how COMEX-driven price moves have unfolded over the years.
COMEX and the LBMA fixing
Alongside the COMEX, the LBMA fixing provides a second global price-reference point, set daily in London by auction. The two markets are tightly interlinked: London dominates physical wholesale (bars, refinery settlement), while New York leads the futures market. International banks and dealers use both references for their hedging.
In brief
The COMEX is the heart of the global precious-metal futures market and thus a leading driver of spot and dealer prices worldwide. Anyone who buys or watches precious metals encounters COMEX prices every day — even without ever having entered into a single futures contract.