Gold trades around the clock, but not evenly. The day divides into regional sessions with different participants, different volumes and different reasons for buying.
Trading passes between three centres
Activity begins in the Asian session, moves to Europe as London opens, and reaches its heaviest volumes when North American markets overlap with the European afternoon.
Each handover leaves an open market, so there is no formal closing price in the way an equity exchange has one. Reference prices are set at specific moments by agreement instead.
The consequence is that a price gap between one day and the next is unusual in gold, since the market has been trading continuously through the interval.
Each session has its own character
The Asian session carries a large share of physical demand, with jewellery manufacturers, retail buyers and regional exchanges active in metal that will be delivered.
The London session is dominated by wholesale over the counter dealing, vault transfers between institutions and the pricing of large physical trades.
The American session brings the deepest futures activity and the strongest reaction to macroeconomic data, which is why sharp moves cluster there.
Liquidity is thinnest at the seams
Between the close of American trading and the opening of Asian markets, participation falls to its lowest point of the day.
Orders that would be absorbed easily during the overlap can move the price noticeably in those hours, because there are fewer counterparties to take the other side.
Traders describe this as a thin market, and price moves made in it are more likely to reverse once fuller participation returns.
Benchmarks are set at fixed moments
Because the market never closes, the industry sets reference prices through auctions held at agreed times, which produce a single figure that contracts can be settled against.
Refiners, miners, jewellers and funds use those figures rather than continuously moving quotes, since a business needs one number to invoice against.
Volume concentrates sharply around those moments, as participants who need the benchmark price submit orders into the auction itself.
Regional holidays leave visible gaps
A public holiday in a major centre removes a whole block of participants while the rest of the market keeps trading.
Prices can drift further than usual on those days, and volumes reported for the session understate the underlying interest rather than reflecting a change in it.
Festival periods in large physical markets work the other way, lifting demand for jewellery and small bars well ahead of the dates themselves as manufacturers build stock.