How the price is set
A UK valuation is worked out in pounds per gram: the fine gold content of your items multiplied by a rate per gram. That rate traces back to the international market, where gold trades around the clock and the London Bullion Market Association's benchmark is set by auction twice each business day. The benchmark is quoted in US dollars per troy ounce — 31.1035 grams — and converted into pounds and grams for use here.
What moves it
- Interest rates. Gold pays no income, so it competes with interest-bearing assets. Rate expectations move it.
- Inflation and currency confidence. Gold is often bought as a hedge when confidence in paper currency weakens.
- Central bank activity. Official sector buying and selling shifts demand in significant volume.
- Geopolitical events. Uncertainty tends to increase demand for assets seen as a store of value.
- Jewellery and industrial demand. Seasonal and regional demand affects the physical market.
- The exchange rate. For a UK seller, a weaker pound raises the sterling price even if the dollar price is unchanged.
Why no price is published on this site
A gold price is only true for the moment it is quoted. Rates move daily, so a figure sitting on a web page is wrong more often than it is right, and it invites people to plan around a number that has already changed or to read it as an offer. Gold Up publishes neither a live rate nor a fixed percentage of one. The rate that matters is the one applying when your items are valued, and it is quoted to you then.
The price is not what you are paid
The market price is for certified fine gold in standard bar form. Jewellery is not that, and has to be sorted and refined before it becomes that. Spot price versus what a gold buyer pays explains what sits between the two.
This page is general information about how the gold market works. It is not financial or investment advice.
