LBMA Gold Price (London Fix): What It Is, When It Is Set and Why Traders Watch It

The short answer

The London gold fix is now called the LBMA Gold Price. It is a benchmark price for gold, in US dollars per troy ounce, set twice every London business day in an electronic auction. The auctions are expected to start at 10:30 and 15:00 London time, and the final prices are published as the LBMA Gold Price AM and LBMA Gold Price PM. The auction is run by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA), which took over in March 2015 from the old telephone “fix” that began in 1919.

For a XAUUSD trader, the fix is a reference price, not a trading signal. It matters because big buyers, sellers, funds and central banks use it, and because it shows you when London’s physical gold market is most active. It is not the price on your screen, and in our own data it does not make gold reliably jump.

What the LBMA Gold Price is

Gold trades all day between banks, refiners, miners and funds, mostly in London, where the global “spot” (for immediate delivery) market for large bars lives. That market has no single exchange screen, so people needed one agreed price they could all point to in a contract. The fix is that price.

In the words of the official methodology, the LBMA Gold Price is the global benchmark price for unallocated gold delivered in London. “Unallocated” means gold held as a claim on a pool of metal rather than specific numbered bars. Producers, refiners, banks, central banks, investors, jewellers and other users transact in the auction and use the result as a reference price.

Three groups run it:

Our glossary entries for the LBMA and the London fix give the one-paragraph versions.

When the London fix happens in your time zone

The auctions follow London time, so the times move for everyone else when the UK or your own country changes clocks. The UK moved from BST back to GMT on Sunday 25 October 2026, and the US moved from EDT to EST on Sunday 1 November 2026, so right now both are on winter time.

Winter (UK on GMT, US on EST), the setting from 1 November 2026

Summer (UK on BST, US on EDT)

Two short windows each year break this pattern because the US and UK change clocks on different Sundays: a few weeks in March and about one week at the turn of October and November. In those weeks New York is one hour later than usual (06:30 and 11:00). India, Dubai and Singapore do not use daylight saving, so for them only the UK change matters.

These are start times. IBA’s methodology says the benchmark comes from the final round of the auction, so there is no set publication minute; the price appears when the auction balances, which can take one round or several. Our gold market hours tool shows the London and New York sessions in your own zone.

How the auction works, step by step

The old fix was a small group of banks agreeing a price, first in a room and later by telephone. Today it is an open electronic auction with published rules. Here is how IBA’s methodology describes it, in plain words:

1. Round Zero (30 minutes before the start). Participants can queue up their orders. There is no price in this stage.
2. A starting price is shown. At the start of each round IBA publishes a price for that round. An algorithm picks it from current market conditions and the activity in the auction, and IBA staff supervise every auction.
3. 30 seconds to react. Participants enter, change or cancel how much gold they want to buy or sell at that price.
4. Check the imbalance. When the round ends, order entry freezes and the system compares total buying with total selling. The gap is the “imbalance”. The usual tolerance for gold is 10,000 ounces.
5. Too big? Try again. If the imbalance is larger than the threshold, the price is adjusted and a new 30-second round starts. Too many buyers pushes the price up; too many sellers pushes it down.
6. Small enough? Price set. When the imbalance is within the threshold, the auction ends. Any small leftover is shared equally between the direct participants, every order trades at the final price, and that price is published as the LBMA Gold Price.

Two details matter for understanding headlines:

• The auction trades in US dollars only. IBA also publishes the price in pounds and euros, converted at exchange rates from the end of the final round, and LBMA lists indicative prices in a further sixteen currencies, including the Indian rupee. Only the dollar price is tradeable in the auction; the others are for settlement only.
• It is real trading. The auction is physically settled: the gold bought and sold at the final price really changes hands. Trades settle two London business days later.

A short history: from a room at Rothschild to an electronic auction

That is why people still say “the fix”. The old panel system was criticised because a few banks saw the order flow; the new auction has published rules, more participants, a yearly methodology review by an oversight committee and an error policy.

Who uses the fix, and why it matters to you

A benchmark matters because of how much money is tied to it. The methodology names producers, refiners, banks, central banks, fabricators and jewellers as users. A few concrete examples:

• Gold ETFs. The largest US gold ETF has valued its gold using the LBMA Gold Price PM since 20 March 2015, the day after the old fix ended. That is why ETF tonnes and net asset values are quoted “at the PM price”. Our guide on how to read gold ETF flows and the gold ETF flows tracker build on those numbers.
• Contracts and valuations. Sellers and buyers of physical gold can agree a deal “at the LBMA PM price”, and holders use the benchmark to value their gold, so nobody argues about which screen to use.
• Local price lists. Dealers and jewellers in many countries start from an international benchmark, then add currency conversion, import duty, taxes and their margin. Our page on gold prices in other currencies explains how that conversion works.

For a trader, the useful point is this: around 10:30 and 15:00 London time, real physical orders are being matched. That is part of why the London morning and the London-New York overlap are the most liquid parts of the gold day. Our London vs New York sessions guide covers what each session tends to look like.

Does the London fix move the XAUUSD price? What our data shows

Many trading forums claim that “gold always spikes at the fix”. We checked that against our own data rather than repeat it.

We used COMEX gold futures (GC=F) 1-hour bars from 30 October 2024 to 30 October 2026, 482 trading days and about 500 bars for each hour of the day, converted to London local time (so the bar that contains the auction start is the same London hour in summer and winter). For each hour we took the average high-to-low range of the bar. These are the same numbers that power our when does gold move most tool.

What this tells us, honestly:

• The morning auction hour is one of the calmer London hours, not a spike. Its average range was smaller than every other hour from 08:00 to 12:00 in the table.
• The afternoon auction hour is busy, but so are the two hours before it. Those hours hold the big US data releases (13:30 London time in winter, 12:30 in summer) and the New York stock market open. With an hourly average we cannot separate the auction from that news flow, so we do not claim the PM fix causes the move.
• Averages hide single days. On a given day a large order can push the auction price, and short-lived moves inside a few minutes do not show up in hourly data.

So treat the fix as a time when liquidity is high and big orders are being matched, not as a pattern that pays. If you trade the afternoon, the US calendar matters far more; see our CPI day guide and the CPI event page for how gold has reacted on release days.

London fix vs spot price vs futures price

Beginners often mix up three “gold prices”:

At the moment an auction ends, spot and the fix are normally close, because both come from the same London market. Later in the day the spot price keeps moving while the fix stays where it was set, so comparing your screen with “today’s fix” in the evening can show a big gap that is simply time passing. Our guide to spot gold vs gold futures explains the futures premium in more detail.

Worked example (hypothetical numbers). Say the PM auction ends at $4,050.00 and your XAUUSD quote at that moment shows $4,049.60 bid and $4,050.00 ask. The two match within your spread. Two hours later US data pushes spot to $4,080. The day’s PM price is still $4,050.00, because it was fixed at the auction. Neither number is wrong; they answer different questions.

Holidays: when there is no fix

LBMA says the precious metal prices are not published on weekends or on UK bank holidays. The IBA holiday calendar for the rest of 2026 shows:

Spot gold can still trade on some of these days, with thin liquidity. For trading hours, see does gold trade on weekends and our market hours tool.

Where to see the fix

LBMA shows recent AM and PM prices on its website. Full history sits in the MyLBMA portal, and LBMA states that a licence from IBA is required to obtain, use or redistribute real-time or historical benchmark data for pricing, valuation or financial products. That is why our own charts use named public market data, not LBMA prices.

What to do now

• Add 10:30 and 15:00 London time to your trading notes in your own zone (see the tables above).
• Use the market hours tool and when does gold move most to see which hours suit your routine.
• Read what moves gold prices for the forces that matter more than any benchmark: yields, the dollar, inflation and risk mood.

Sources

• LBMA: Precious metal prices (auction times, currencies, publication and licence)
• LBMA: LBMA Gold Price (history since 2015, auction format, currencies)
• ICE Benchmark Administration: LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price Methodology
• ICE Benchmark Administration: LBMA Gold Price Holiday Calendar 2026
• LBMA: The first gold fixing (1919)
• Wikipedia: Gold fixing (history of the fixing, 1968 afternoon fix, 2004 and 2014 changes)
• State Street Global Advisors: SPDR Gold Trust (NAV benchmark)
• XAUUSD Global hourly volatility data: COMEX gold futures (GC=F) 1-hour bars via Yahoo Finance, 30 Oct 2024 to 30 Oct 2026 (/tools/when-does-gold-move-most/)

Educational content only, not financial advice. Trading gold with leverage carries a high risk of loss.

Frequently asked questions