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The London Gold Fixing (or Gold Fix)[1] is the setting of the price of gold that takes place via a dedicated conference line. It was formerly held on the London premises of Nathan Mayer Rothschild & Sons by the members of The London Gold Market Fixing Ltd.

The benchmark is determined twice each business day of the London bullion market (the exceptions to this being Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve when there is only one fixing in the morning). It is designed to fix a price for settling contracts between members of the London bullion market, but the gold fixing informally provides a recognized rate that is used as a benchmark for pricing the majority of gold products and derivatives throughout the world’s markets. The LBMA gold price is set twice every business day at 10:30AM and 3:00PM, London time, in United States dollars (USD). Prices are available in sixteen other currencies—including British pounds, Canadian dollars, Chinese renminbi, and euros—but they are indicative prices for settlement between LBMA members only.

The LBMA Gold Price is administered independently by ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA), which provides the electronic auction platform on which the benchmark is calculated.[2] As of 2026, LBMA listed fifteen direct participants in the LBMA Gold Price.[2]

History

On 12 September 1919 at 11:00 am, the five principal gold bullion traders and refiners of the day (N.M. Rothschild & Sons, Mocatta & Goldsmid, Pixley & Abell, Samuel Montagu & Co., and Sharps Wilkins) performed the first London gold fixing, thus becoming the five founding members.[3] The gold price was determined to be £4 18/9 (GBP 4.9375) per troy ounce. The New York gold price was US$19.39. The first few fixings were conducted by telephone until the members started meeting at the Rothschild offices in New Court, St Swithin’s Lane.

In 1933, Executive Order 6102 was signed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, requiring US citizens to turn in their gold for $20.67 per ounce. Afterwards, the price of gold was set at $35.00 per ounce.

Due to wartime emergencies and government controls, the London gold fixing was suspended between 1939 and 1954, when the London gold market was closed.

On 21 January 1980 the gold fixing reached the price of $850, a figure not surpassed until 3 January 2008 when a new record of $865.35 per troy ounce was set in the a.m. fixing. However, when indexed for inflation, the 1980 high corresponds to a price of $2,305.18 in 2011 dollars,[4] thus the 1980 record still holds in real terms.

The fixing historically took place at the London offices of N M Rothschild & Sons in St Swithin’s Lane, but since 5 May 2004 it takes place by a dedicated telephone conferencing system. This was necessary as some banks moved their London operations away from the Bank of England towards areas such as Canary Wharf. Until 1968, the price was fixed only once a day, when a second fixing was introduced at 3 p.m. to coincide with the opening of the US markets, as the price of gold was no longer under control of the Bank of England, a result of the collapse of the London Gold Pool.

In April 2004, N.M. Rothschild & Sons announced that it planned to withdraw from gold trading and from the London gold fixing. Barclays Capital took its place on 7 June 2004 and the chairmanship of the meeting, formerly held permanently by Rothschilds, now rotates annually.

On 28 June 2012, an employee of Barclays manipulated the gold fixing process to prevent a derivative product previously sold to a client from leading to a payout. The employee, and subsequently Barclays, self-reported the incident.[5]

In January 2014, Deutsche Bank withdrew from the panels setting the gold and silver fixings.[6]

On 23 May 2014 the Financial Conduct Authority announced it had fined Barclays £26 million for systems and controls failures, and conflict of interest in relation to the gold fixing over the nine years to 2013, and for manipulation of the gold price on 28 June 2012.[7]

Process

The modern LBMA Gold Price is set through electronic auctions operated by IBA for spot, unallocated loco London gold. The gold auctions are run at 10:30 and 15:00 London time, and the final auction prices are published as the LBMA Gold Price AM and LBMA Gold Price PM benchmarks, respectively.[8]

The auction process runs on the ICE Trading Platform. Auctions run in rounds of 30 seconds. At the start of each round, IBA publishes a price for that round, and participants may enter, change, or cancel orders during the round. At the end of each round, order entry is frozen and the system checks whether the difference between buying and selling, known as the imbalance, is within the imbalance threshold, which is normally 10,000 ounces for gold.[8]

If the imbalance is outside the threshold, the auction is not balanced, the price is adjusted and a new round starts. If the imbalance is within the threshold, the auction is finished and the price is set. IBA states that any imbalance is shared equally between all direct participants and that the net volume for each participant trades at the final price.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ “London Gold Fixing”. Archived from the original on 2013-11-06. Retrieved 2014-07-27.
  2. ^ a b “LBMA Gold Price”. London Bullion Market Association. Retrieved 14 May 2026.
  3. ^ What is gold fixing? – London Gold Fixing[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ ”Why gold is breaking records”, CNNMoney, 12 May 2010.
  5. ^ “Barclays Manipulated Gold as Soon as It Stopped Manipulating Libor”. Bloomberg.com. 23 May 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-09-29. Retrieved 2015-01-29.
  6. ^ Vaughan, Liam (28 February 2014). “Gold Fix Study Shows Signs of Decade of Bank Manipulation”. Bloomberg.
  7. ^ “FCA fines Barclays 26mn pounds over gold price manipulation”. The London News.Net. Archived from the original on 25 May 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
  8. ^ a b c “LBMA Gold and Silver Price”. ICE Benchmark Administration. Retrieved 14 May 2026.