Live gold price (XAU/USD)

What the spot number is

Spot gold is the price for immediate delivery of one troy ounce, quoted in US dollars as XAU/USD. It is not set on an exchange the way a stock is; it comes from the global over-the-counter market where banks and dealers quote two-way prices through the trading week. The number you see is the last tradeable quote the data feed captured, not a single official fixing.

Because it is OTC, there is no one true price at any instant. Different liquidity providers quote slightly different levels, and the feed you see aggregates or samples them. That is why the live price is best read as a reference point — close enough to plan a trade around, but always confirmed against your broker's own quote before you click.

Why the broker's price differs

Your broker's gold price differs from the raw interbank quote by the spread, which is the gap between the bid and the ask. You buy at the ask and sell at the bid, so the spread is the immediate cost of a round trip. On XAU/USD it is quoted in dollars per ounce, and with a pip defined as 0.01 it is easy to translate into money for your lot size.

The size of that gap is not fixed. It depends on the account type, the time of day and how volatile the market is; it typically widens when liquidity thins or around major data releases. That is why the calculators here ask for your own inputs rather than assuming a cost — the only honest way to plan is with the spread your account actually shows.

Reading the change and refresh

The change figure tells you how far gold has moved over the stated interval, and the refresh tells you when the quote was last updated. Read together, they answer two different questions: how much the market has moved, and whether the number in front of you is still live. A large change on a stale refresh is history, not a signal.

Use the change as context, not as a trigger. Gold can move sharply on a single headline, and a price that has already travelled is not cheaper or more expensive in any predictive sense. What matters for a trade is your entry, your stop and the size that keeps the loss inside your fixed risk.

How the price feeds the calculators

The live price is the input that makes the other tools concrete. Position size uses the distance between your entry and stop in dollars per ounce; pip value uses the pip definition of 0.01; margin uses the notional value of the position at the current price; and profit or loss uses entry and exit. Change the price and every output changes with it.

That is why the calculators show their inputs. A margin or pip-value figure is only as good as the price and leverage behind it, and the leverage that applies to you is the cap set by the FxPro entity serving Kenya. Treat the live price as the starting point and your own risk rules as the constraint.

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

The number on this page is a reference spot price for XAU/USD, typically sourced from aggregated interbank or market-data feeds rather than from the broker you trade with. It reflects the last traded or mid-market price the feed reported, not a quote any single dealer is obliged to honour. Latency is the delay between the market event and the figure appearing here, and it depends on the feed, your connection and the page refresh cycle.

Latency matters because gold moves in ticks, and a figure that is even a few seconds old can differ from the live market by more than the pip size of 0.01. On a fast move around a US data release, the reference number can lag the tradeable price at your broker, so treat it as context rather than an executable quote. For a 0.10-lot position (10 oz), a difference of a few cents per ounce is a few dollars of P&L, which is why the distinction is practical, not academic.

You cannot trade the reference number directly. Your order fills at the broker's own bid or ask, which is built from that broker's liquidity and risk controls. The reference page is useful for direction, for checking whether your platform is broadly in line, and for feeding calculators, but it is not a promise of execution. When the two disagree, the broker's quote wins, and the gap depends on the broker's feed and the market conditions at that moment.

Why a broker's quote differs from a reference price

A broker's quote differs from a reference price because the broker is quoting a price it will actually trade at, not a mid-market observation. That quote includes the broker's own spread, its liquidity providers' pricing, and any risk adjustment for the size and direction of its book. The reference price is usually a mid or last-trade figure, so the broker's bid and ask sit either side of it rather than on it.

The difference depends on the broker's model, the time of day, and volatility. A broker using multiple liquidity providers may show a quote closer to the aggregated market, while one managing risk internally may widen or skew its price. Around news, the gap between the reference and the tradeable quote often widens because liquidity thins and providers reprice. None of this is a fixed number you can rely on; it is a live negotiation between the broker and its sources.

For your order, only the broker's quote matters. If you are long gold, you enter at the ask and exit at the bid, so the reference price sits somewhere between them. A 0.10-lot position at a reference near 4275.0 is still subject to whatever bid and ask your platform shows at that moment. Use the reference to orient yourself, then check the platform quote before you act, because that is the price your fill will reflect.

Bid, ask and the gap between them

The bid is the price at which you can sell, and the ask is the price at which you can buy; the gap between them is the spread. For XAU/USD, one pip is 0.01, so a spread of a few cents is a few pips. The spread is not a fee charged separately; it is built into the quote, and it is the immediate cost of entering and exiting a position. On a 0.10-lot (10 oz) trade, each cent of spread is $0.10 of cost.

The size of the gap depends on the broker, the instrument, the session and volatility. Gold spreads typically widen when liquidity is thin, such as around the daily close or during major announcements, and narrow when the market is deep and active. Because no fixed spread is stated for this page, treat any figure you see on your platform as the live one for that moment. The reference price does not tell you the spread; only the broker's bid and ask do.

To trade, you cross the spread: buying lifts the ask, selling hits the bid. That means a position starts slightly negative on the broker's mark-to-market, and it must move by at least the spread to break even before other costs. The gap is therefore a cost you can see and measure before you click, which is why checking the live bid and ask is more useful than watching the reference number alone.

What a stale quote looks like and what to do about it

A stale quote looks like a price that has stopped moving while the market around it has not. On this page, that could mean the figure stays identical through a period when gold is clearly active, or the timestamp does not advance. On a trading platform, a stale quote may show as a frozen bid or ask, a widened spread that does not narrow, or a price that fails to update after a news release. The tell is inconsistency with other sources.

What you do about it depends on where the staleness is. If the reference page is stale, refresh it and cross-check against your platform; do not assume the page is wrong, but do not trade off it either. If your platform quote is stale, avoid market orders until it updates, because a fill at an old price can be rejected or slipped. In fast markets, a limit order with a defined price is safer than a market order that accepts whatever the next quote is.

Staleness is a signal to slow down, not to guess. Gold at a reference near 4275.0 can move several dollars in minutes around data, so an old number is a poor basis for a 0.10-lot entry. Check that the timestamp is current, compare the broker's bid and ask with the reference, and if they are wildly apart, wait for the feed to catch up. The cost of waiting is usually smaller than the cost of a bad fill.

How often this figure refreshes and what a stale one looks like

This figure refreshes on a cycle set by the page and its data feed, which may be seconds rather than continuously. The exact interval depends on the provider and your connection, so treat the number as a snapshot with a timestamp, not a streaming tick. A stale figure is one whose timestamp has not advanced while the market is open, or one that stays fixed through visible volatility in related instruments. The timestamp is the first thing to check.

A stale reference is not necessarily broken; it may simply be between updates. But if it persists while your broker's platform shows movement, the page is lagging and should not be used for timing. On a 0.10-lot gold position, a lag of even a few cents per ounce changes the P&L by a few dollars, so the refresh rate matters for short-term decisions. Use the platform quote for execution and the page for orientation.

If you suspect staleness, refresh the page, compare the timestamp with your platform's clock, and look at the bid-ask gap on the broker. A widening gap alongside a frozen reference is a sign of thin or disrupted liquidity. In that state, the sensible action is to wait for normal updates rather than to force a trade. The page is a tool, and like any tool it has a refresh limit you should respect.

The difference between a spot reference and the broker's tradeable quote

A spot reference is an indicative mid-market price for XAU/USD, while the broker's tradeable quote is a two-way price you can actually deal on. The reference is typically a single number; the tradeable quote is a bid and an ask, and your order fills at one of them depending on whether you buy or sell. The reference helps you understand the market level; the tradeable quote determines your entry and exit.

The difference between them is not a fixed offset. It depends on the broker's spread, its liquidity, the size of your order and the market session. At a reference near 4275.0, the broker's ask might be above it and the bid below it, with the gap representing the cost of trading. For a 0.10-lot position, the margin requirement at the applicable cap is about $85.50, but the fill price is still the broker's quote, not the reference.

You cannot send an order to the reference price. Your order goes to the broker, which fills it at its own quote subject to available liquidity and any slippage. That is why two traders looking at the same reference can get different fills. The practical rule is to use the reference for analysis and the broker's bid and ask for execution, and to check both before committing to a trade.