What is the spot price of gold?

What "spot" means

The spot price is the market price for one troy ounce of a metal for immediate delivery. It comes from trading among banks, dealers, and exchanges around the world, which runs nearly around the clock on weekdays, so the price moves minute by minute. Over the weekend, when the big markets are closed, it stands still.

Bid and ask

Every spot quote has two sides. The bid is what the wholesale market will pay for an ounce right now; the ask is what it costs to buy one. The gap between them is the spread. When you sell, the bid is the honest reference: it's the most the market itself would pay.

Gold is at $3,925 (bid) right now and silver at $49.46, from Kitco.

Why dealers pay a percentage of spot

A dealer who buys your metal has to test it, refine or resell it, carry the price risk until then, and cover its costs. So offers are a percentage of the bid: higher for clean bullion that resells easily, lower for scrap that has to be melted and refined. Comparing offers is easy once you know two things: the percentage, and which price it's a percentage of.

We publish a percentage of the Kitco bid

Our bids are published as a percentage of the Kitco bid. Kitco is a long-established precious metals company whose live prices anyone can check, so the only number we set is our percentage. Scrap is priced at the Kitco bid when melting and assay begin, and coins and bullion at the Kitco bid when we verify your package, and your payment confirmation shows the bid we used. See our current bids.

We pay more than pawn shops, jewelers, and mail-in gold kits: in Consumer Reports' tests, jewelers and pawn shops paid 36% to 71% of melt value, and mail-in kits 11% to about 29%. We pay 94% for scrap gold. Who pays the most?