Gold at 120.55 euros per gram: up 5.4%, 6.6% below the top
Gold stands today at 120.55 euros per gram. That is 5.4 per cent higher than six weeks ago, and 6.6 per cent lower than the 129.04 euro peak the rate touched in late August. Both sentences are true, and a report that tells you only one of them is misleading you.
Six weeks of gold, in four figures
What the measurements between 28 July and today show:
- Now: 120.55 euros per gram
- Highest point: 129.04 euros per gram — the rate sits 6.6 per cent below it
- Lowest point: 112.44 euros per gram — the rate sits 7.2 per cent above it
- Six weeks ago: 5.4 per cent lower than today
On 27 August gold still stood at 127.14 euros per gram. It has fallen back 5.2 per cent since. Whoever sold that day received more than someone selling today; whoever sold on 28 July received less. Neither could have known in advance, and that is precisely the point.
The same dollar price, a different amount in euros
There is a curiosity in today's figures that shows neatly where your proceeds come from. Gold now quotes 4,349 dollars per troy ounce — exactly the same number as on 14 August. Yet the rate then stood at 120.99 euros per gram and now stands at 120.55.
The difference of 44 euro cents per gram comes entirely from the euro rate, which moved from 1.1556 to 1.1598 dollars. Over a hundred grams that is 44 euros, without anything having changed on the gold market. For a Dutch or Belgian seller the dollar quote is therefore only half the story; the figure that counts is the rate in euros per gram.
Your jewellery, worked out. At 120.55 euros per gram, 14 carat (585) is 70.52 euros per gram of material and 18 carat (750) is 90.41 euros. What you are paid sits below that: the margin for melting and refining still comes off.
Waiting for the top, or not
The honest line is this: the rate is historically high, but not at its highest point of the past six weeks. That is neither a reason to sell nor a reason to wait. It is the state of affairs.
Anyone waiting for the top usually waits too long, and that is arithmetic rather than sales talk: a top is only recognisable once it has passed. On 27 August nobody knew that 129.04 would turn out to be the highest figure of this period — not us either, and we measure it every minute. Whoever thought "just a little longer" then is looking at 5.2 per cent less today.
This is not a prompt to sell now. It is a prompt not to wait on a number nobody knows in advance, and to decide instead on what you do know: what it yields today, and what the piece means to you. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You hear the figure, you take it home, and you decide for yourself — today, next month, or not at all.
- The four Cs: which weighs heaviest when selling?Carat, cut, colour and clarity are not equally important. Which is measurable, which remains a judgement, and why an old cut deserves its own yardstick.Read on
- Selling a watch without papers: can you?Yes, and we buy it too. What gets checked in place of a warranty card, which numbers sit inside the case, and what you can look up at home beforehand.Read on
- Silver at 1.9123 euros per gram, up 18.5% in a monthSilver rose 18.5 per cent since 28 July, gold 11.8 per cent, platinum 12.7 per cent. The four metals side by side, and why a month is still not a trend.Read on
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Sources
Where you can verify what you have just read.
- LBMAThe London gold and silver price our daily rate is built on
- WaarborgHollandThe Dutch assay office that verifies fineness and strikes hallmarks
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