Gold Price Chart & Gold Trading
Discover online gold trading on this page. Understand the factors influencing gold prices (XAUUSD), learn optimal trading times and strategies, and find answers to common beginner questions. Use a gold price live chart to monitor real-time gold prices and rely on accurate gold forecasts to guide your trading decisions effectively.
Gold Price Chart Today
Gold Market Trading Hours
New gold investors often wonder about the opening hours of the gold market. Simply the answer is that gold markets operate continuously, 24 hours a day, five days a week. Unlike stocks, gold is not traded on a centralized exchange. The primary markets for gold include futures and physical markets where traders buy gold bullion. Access to gold futures is typically through a broker.
As a trader, it’s important to understand that there are no specific opening or closing times for the gold market.
Gold markets are open 24/5, allowing traders to execute trades at any time. The most active trading hours occur during the European and American sessions, while the Asian session tends to be quieter due to fewer open exchanges.
Trading gold during peak market hours offers more opportunities than during quieter periods.
Should You Trade Gold? Is Gold Trading Still Profitable?
If you’re currently questioning whether gold is a wise investment, the answer is yes. Gold remains a favorable investment choice now, and it is predicted to remain so in the near future.
Gold remains a solid investment today due to its intrinsic value and status as a safe-haven asset. Unlike other common investments like meme stocks, gold maintains its value during inflationary periods, making it a valuable addition to many investment portfolios.
If you’re wondering whether to buy gold now, it depends on your investment goals. Holding gold long-term can yield average gains amid rising prices. Alternatively, as a swing trader, profiting from short-term price swings in gold can lead to significant gains but comes with higher risk.
Beginner investors often wonder if gold is a safe investment. Yes, it is considered one of the safest due to its status as a physical commodity. Despite occasional large price swings, it can yield above-average returns if managed skilfully.
What about the future of gold?
What Affects the Price of Gold?
As you begin trading, you might wonder how gold is priced. Gold prices are mainly driven by supply and demand forces. High demand and low supply typically result in higher prices, whereas high supply and low demand often lead to lower prices.
Gold is a physical commodity that serves different purposes, such as making jewellery and electronics, acting as a form of money, and being used for investment. Its price is determined by supply and demand dynamics.
Inflation is another key factor affecting gold prices, as investors often buy gold to hedge against currency devaluation during inflationary periods.
Political instability and events like trade wars can rapidly drive up gold prices. For instance, the US-China trade war boosted gold prices from 2019 way through to 2020.
Gold price fluctuations can be influenced by Central Banks globally accumulating gold reserves to hedge against inflation and support their currencies. Countries with volatile currencies also stockpile gold to stabilize their local currency values.
Central Banks often buy gold to diversify their treasury holdings beyond foreign currencies. In 2020, 650 tons of gold were purchased, which drove up the demand for the yellow metal.
Over time, the price of gold has consistently risen, with the current trading price of the yellow metal exceeding $1,700, compared to only $100 fifty years ago.
Investors may find it surprising that gold prices usually drop when economic and political conditions are stable. During such times, fewer people feel the need to buy gold as a hedge against inflation.
US Dollar
The US dollar strongly influences gold prices because both are considered safe-haven assets and compete for investor funds. Investors must decide whether to invest in gold or the US dollar depending on market conditions.
Investors typically buy gold when the US dollar falls to protect their investments during inflation. On the contrary, they buy more dollars when the reserve currency strengthens, often leading to lower gold prices.
Thus, we can conclude that gold prices generally benefit from a weakening dollar, whereas the dollar benefits from lower gold prices.
Weekly gold price chart
The weekly gold price chart above shows how gold prices rose from October 2018 to August 2020, marking a significant bull trend.
Trading Gold CFDs vs Invest Physical Gold
Which One is Right for You?
As a beginner trader interested in gold’s safe-haven qualities, you can trade it online using various methods, primarily through trading gold products online rather than physical gold.
Buying and storing physical gold is complicated and risky. For most investors, trading gold through online instruments like CFDs, stocks, and ETFs is safer and more convenient.
What is a gold CFD?
Gold CFD refers to tradable instruments offered by most Forex and CFD brokers that track the underlying prices of the yellow metal. Gold CFDs trading allow you to trade gold without buying an ounce of gold, which trades at over $1700. Instead, you can buy fractions of gold for a few dollars and try to profit from the constant changes in gold prices. You can also bet on falling gold prices without having to deposit vast amounts of capital and margin with a traditional broker
As a trader, you might have heard of the term paper gold and may be wondering, what is paper gold? Paper gold refers to all the digital representations of gold traders by millions of investors from all over the world. For example, gold CFDs are paper gold, gold futures are paper gold, among others. However, gold stocks are not paper gold because they represent the shares of gold mining companies, not actual gold. Therefore, paper gold refers to instruments that track the actual price of physical gold.
So, how can you trade gold CFDs? The easiest way to trade gold CFDs is to open an account with a regulated broker that offers gold CFDs as a tradable asset. You should choose a licensed broker by a tier 1 regulator like the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Your chosen broker should offer fair spreads, fast execution speeds, and 24/5 customer support.
Some Forex brokers offer gold-stock CFDs for traders interested in trading gold stocks that allow you to bet on rising and falling gold prices readily. In addition, trading gold stocks as CFDs allow you to get started trading with minimal costs, compared to trading the actual gold stocks with a traditional stockbroker.
Differences between trading gold CFDs and Physical Gold
| Trading gold CFDs | Trading Physical Gold |
|---|---|
| 1.It can be bought and sold quickly without requiring physical storage. | 1.One must figure out how to store the physical gold due to security risks. |
| 2.It can be traded in small quantities. | 2.Must be bought in the form of physical gold bars or jewelry. |
| 3.One can profit from rising and falling gold prices. | 3.One can only profit from rising gold prices while booking losses as prices fall. |
Step-by-step: How to Trade Gold Online?
Most trading beginners usually find themselves stuck figuring out how to buy and sell gold commodities online. This section shall detail how you can buy and sell gold on the popular MetaTrader 4 platform. We shall also briefly touch on becoming a successful gold trader. To get started, we shall look at the gold trading symbol. Most trading platforms will list gold under the ticker symbol XAUUSD, the price of gold quoted in US dollars. The symbol XAU stands for gold and is derived from its chemical formula AU, while USD stands for the US dollar.
Trading gold CFDs online will require you to open a trading account with a reputable CFDs broker. Once you have opened a brokerage account, you can deposit funds into the account and start trading gold CFDs.
The buttons at the top left corner represent the buy and sell buttons.
You can easily buy and sell gold CFDs on the ATFX MetaTrader 4 application by clicking on the above buttons. The process is quite simple as the chart is linked to your trading account and you will be trading your own funds if it’s a live account, or virtual funds if it is a demo account. In between the buttons you choose the amount of gold that you would like to buy or sell. After the position is open you can place a protective stop-loss order, and a take profit order, so you leave the software to manage the position on your behalf.
Why Trade Gold with ATFX?
A Golden Opportunity!
Always Online
Trade Anywhere
No Commission
Trading gold with ATFX allows you to trade gold CFDs with low spreads; hence you get to keep most of your profits. You also get to profit from rising and falling prices by taking trades in either direction without having to post a significant margin.
Trading gold with ATFX gives you a golden opportunity due to the deep liquidity offered by the broker; hence, you can quickly get into and out of massive positions. In addition, gold prices tend to fluctuate significantly daily, offering gold traders multiple opportunities daily.
You also get access to metals trading 23 hours five days a week as the markets are closed for one hour daily to allow for settling transactions.
ATFX’s gold traders can trade the yellow metal from anywhere in the world so long as they have an internet connection. You can trade on the go using the MT4 mobile and web platforms.
ATFX does not charge a commission on gold trades; hence, you can trade gold commission-free with only a small spread.
Gold Trading Strategy for Beginners and Advanced Gold Traders
Most trading beginners are always looking for the best way to trade gold with the mindset that there is a strategy with zero losing trades. Unfortunately, there is no gold trading strategy that does not have some losing trades.
However, traders can learn how to buy and sell gold for a profit by following the gold trading basics, such as being aware of global geopolitical events. Another critical component of trading gold successfully is to have a trading strategy built on technical analysis that allows you to identify the best trading opportunities.
You can trade gold using various instruments such as gold futures and CFDs, options and gold stocks. However, the most popular gold trading instruments are gold futures and CFDs.
Always Trade With the Trend
Time Frame Selection
The Time Frame you trade is also a crucial part of your overall trading strategy. You should choose a trading timeframe that is aligned with your schedule. Those who do not have a lot of time to sit on their computer during the day should focus on trading the 4-hour and daily timeframes.
Traders who have constant access to the markets and can trade during the day could be successful day traders.
Those who are trading the markets as a side hustle should also utilize the higher time frames such as the 4-hour and daily charts.
Support and Resistance
The first step is to identify potential trade areas such as support and resistance zones, which you can use to place your trades. You can then take bullish trades when the price bounces off support while executing bearish trades when the price bounces off resistance.
The chart below shows two support lines drawn on the daily gold chart. The first support line has been broken several times in the past and does not represent a good trade location.
On the other hand, the second support level has held for multiple months and is a solid level that is likely to hold in future. Well, the price is approaching the level at the time of writing, and it is likely that it will hold this time as well.
Gold support levels.
Other Tips
Always keep abreast of what is happening in the global political arena and the stocks and currencies markets since some of these events significantly affect gold prices.
Beginner traders should keep in mind that every trading strategy has losing trades and streaks, which they should not be afraid of if they want to become successful traders over the long term.
Trading off support and resistance zones seems like a straightforward trading strategy, and it is. Yet, it is a strategy used by all traders, from beginners to advanced traders, which is what makes it so effective.
Let your broker do the heavy lifting
Some brokers, such as ATFX, will send you daily gold trading tips and strategies issued by their trading experts, but it will still be up to you to implement the online trading strategies correctly. Still, you should remember that even the top traders have losing trades. With ATFX, you have access to Trading Central and Autochartists, which are premium add ons to the popular MetaTrader 4 platform that improve your overall trading experience. You can use both add-ons as a source of trading ideas.
You should always backtest your chosen trading strategy to ensure that it has worked in the past, which increases the chances that it will work in future. Another commonly overlooked aspect of trading is a trader’s mindset. You should constantly work on your mindset to help you hold on to your winners for longer while quickly cutting your losing trades short.
Having a solid mindset will contribute significantly to your trading success than having a high win rate with a trading strategy.
Start Gold Trading in 3 Simple Steps
Register for an account
Register Live Account
Complete the Live Trading Account application form & send all your e-KYC requirements.
Get Verified
We will verify and establish your identity through a series of security questions. Once we have verified identity, we will set up your account.
Start Trading
Start Trading & Fund Your Account. Go to your dashboard and fund your account to start trading online on our platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, gold is still very relevant today and investors should not hesitate to invest in the yellow metal, which still acts as a safe-haven asset to date.
Yes, Gold trades 24 hours a day five days a week, but the gold futures markets are usually closed over the weekend. Hence, you cannot open new gold trades over the weekend, but you can hold your open trades over the weekend.
You do not need a lot of money to trade gold. While most brokers will allow you to deposit funds as little as $50 into a new account. The best amount to trade gold with is $2000 given that it is a relatively expensive asset.
The best way to invest in gold is via gold CFDs, which you can trade with a small account. CFD trading allows you to profit from both falling and rising gold prices.
Yes, beginners can successfully trade gold by following the strategies outlined here on this page as well as on other parts of our website.
You can invest in both gold and silver, which are extremely important commodities within the global economy. Silver is a much cheaper and less volatile asset compared to gold. Therefore, you are likely to have more trading opportunities in gold than silver.
There is no single best MT4 indicator for trading gold. However, some of the most popular indicators are the Fibonacci retracement tool and the moving average indicators.
The best way to practice and get better at gold trading is by opening a demo account that allows you to trade gold without risking your own cash. You should document all your trades so that you can identify areas that need improvement.
You can open a live account here.
