Gold (GC=F) December futures opened at $4,673.40 per troy ounce on Monday, August 24, 2026, down 0.2% from Friday's closing price. The price of gold was rising later in the morning, standing at $4,712.60 per troy ounce as of 8:30 a.m. ET.

Gold opened above $4,600 for the first time since May 15 and even peaked earlier in the session above $4,700 — a level the metal had not reached since May 13. The contract trades on COMEX, the CME Group exchange that serves as the benchmark global venue for gold futures.

Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi published an analysis on Monday morning — "Why gold and silver prices have added $5 trillion in value" — explaining why gold prices have rallied recently and why he and many analysts expect gold to remain "hot" through the end of the month, and perhaps even beyond:

Gold and silver prices are being fueled by a potent combination of monetary policy interventions, escalating geopolitical friction in the Middle East, and persistent global inflation. A major catalyst for the late-August breakout has been U.S. Treasury's unexpected decision to double its long-term bond buyback program to $4 billion per session. In turn, this has triggered an aggressive wave of short-covering and speculative buying across precious metals markets. At the same time, a never-ending war with Iran — which has pushed up energy prices once again — has reinforced gold's status as the primary global safe-haven asset.

Current price of gold

The opening price of gold futures on Monday, August 24, 2026 was down 0.2% from Friday's closing price. Here is how the opening gold price has changed compared with last week, last month, and last year:

• One week ago: +6.3%
• One month ago: +14.9%
• One year ago: +39.5%

For context, gold's one-year gain stood at 95.6% on Jan. 29. Moves of this scale ripple across the wider sector: physically backed gold ETFs track the metal's price directly, and gold-mining companies sell their output at market prices, so their revenues move with bullion.

The current price of gold can be monitored on Yahoo Finance 24 hours a day, seven days a week, whether tracking the metal's change in value since last month or last year. Yahoo Finance's gold forecast and tracker also follows live gold prices and expert predictions about gold's performance in 2026, including the question of whether gold will reach $6,000. Near term, the drivers cited in the analysis — the pace of Treasury's bond buyback operations, Middle East tensions feeding into energy prices, and incoming inflation readings — are the variables analysts are watching.

Investors interested in the sector can explore a list of top-performing companies in the gold industry using the Yahoo Finance Screener, which supports custom screeners built from more than 150 different screening criteria.

Gold prices explained

The price of gold can be quoted in multiple forms because the precious metal is traded in different ways. The two main gold prices investors should know about are spot prices and gold futures prices.

The spot price

The spot price of gold — sometimes called spot gold — is the current market price per ounce for physical gold as a raw material. Gold ETFs that are backed by physical gold assets generally track the gold spot price.

The spot price is lower than what buyers would pay for gold coins, bullion, or jewelry, since the total price includes a markup known as the gold premium, which covers refining, marketing, dealer overhead, and profits. The spot price is more like a wholesale price: the spot price plus the gold premium makes up the retail price.

Gold futures

Gold futures are contracts that mandate a gold transaction at a specific price on a future date. These contracts are exchange-traded and more liquid than physical gold. They settle on the contract expiration date or earlier, either financially or via delivery. A financial cash settlement involves paying the contract's profit or loss in cash, while delivery means the seller sends physical gold to the buyer at the contracted price.

Factors that affect gold prices

Supply and demand determine both gold spot prices and gold futures prices. Factors that influence gold supply and demand include:

• Geopolitical events
• Central bank buying trends
• Inflation
• Interest rates
• Mining production

Two of these drivers are especially relevant to the current run: central banks have been net purchasers of gold for more than a decade, according to World Gold Council data, providing a persistent source of demand, and gold pays no interest or dividends, so rising interest rates increase the opportunity cost of holding it.

For historical perspective on gold's long-run trajectory, $1 million in 1900 could have bought 53,000 ounces of gold. At today's prices, that amount of metal would be worth $278 million.