Guide
London and New York gold sessions
The LBMA Gold Price is set in auctions that start at 10:30 and 15:00 London time. Spot XAUUSD trades from the Sunday open to the Friday close. The heaviest part of that week is usually the hours when London and New York are both in their daytime session.
Editorial update 25 October 2026.
By the Buyndsell editorial desk. No personal track record is claimed.
Those auction times are London civil time. Daylight saving in the UK and the US does not land on the same weekend, so a city clock can shift by an hour twice a year. The location pages recompute the local hour instead of printing one number for the whole year.
How to use the session tape
- The gold bar is 08:00–17:00 in London, drawn on the local clock.
- The blue bar is 08:00–17:00 in New York, drawn on the same local clock.
- The bone bar is the overlap. That is the busy window, not a buy recommendation.
Asia has deep physical markets, including the Shanghai Gold Exchange, and still the London auction remains the benchmark named on these pages. A busy chart in your evening can be London's morning.
Questions
Does gold close at 5 p.m. New York?
The spot market winds down for the weekend after New York's Friday session and reopens Sunday evening New York time. A weekday afternoon in New York is not a hard close for spot gold.
Where do the auction times come from?
From the LBMA Gold Price, published by the LBMA. The World Gold Council publishes separate gold price data. Both are linked on this site.