Gold Metal Online Trading - XAUUSD Trading Symbol
Gold metal is popularly transacted in the online financial trading markets. Because XAUUSD is one of the precious metals its price is determined & quoted in terms of US Dollars at any one time. Anyone can then buy or sell xauusd either physically in the form of gold bars or using the more popular method - selling and buying xauusd online in the format of lots.
When it comes to buying and selling Gold metal online - a gold trader has to look for an online XAUUSD Broker, the gold broker will then provide you access to trading gold online. The gold that will be traded will be traded as a contract: once a trader buys a contract for Gold, the online trader then will make a profit or loss depending on the direction that the price of Gold will move in. If a trader buys a contract of XAUUSD and the prices of Gold move up then the trader will have made profit from the price difference and they can close-out their buy trade of the Gold contract and book their profits. However, if a trader buys one contract of XAUUSD & the market price then moves down then the trader will accrue a loss once they close out their open contract at a lower price.
XAUUSD contracts and lots are traded similarly to shares or stocks: investors profit when their share values increase, and incur losses when prices drop.
Gold Contracts
When it comes to online XAUUSD metal trading, gold is traded as a contract: one contract of Gold is made up of 100 ounces. Therefore when a trader is xauusd online then they'll be buying/selling a contract and lot that is equal to 1 hundred0 ounces of XAUUSD.
Brokers quote XAUUSD prices online. Gold traders buy or sell contracts at those rates. In trading, gold uses the XAU format.
Because XAUUSD is priced against the US Dollar, the trading symbol will be Gold, which means the price of gold is shown against the US Dollar.
Price of Gold - XAUUSD Price Quotes
The Price of Gold is quoted as show above using the Bid and Ask Price
- Bid is the price at which you buy
- Sell is the price at which you sell
Gold trades as XAUUSD symbol, shown that way above.
The current price quote of XAUUSD is 1267.11
This signifies that an XAUUSD trader intending to acquire one contract of Gold would enter the market by buying at the price of 1267.11.
XAUUSD is quoted using two decimal digits in the case above the last two decimal digits are .11
The last decimal point is used to calculate the profit & losses of trades, the last point is known as a a pip or one point.
When trading Gold one pip represents a movement of $1 dollars
Say gold moves from 1267.00 to 1268.00 - that's a one-dollar move. Since gold trades in lots of 100 ounces, that $1 move becomes $100. So, if you're trading online, that jump means a $100 profit.
A move from 1267.00 to 1268.00 covers 100 points. Each point equals $1 profit per pip, or 0.01 move.
Opening a Gold Chart
To open a XAU USD trading chart, a trader can open this chart from the gold trading platform, MetaTrader 4 software from the "File" menu such as shown below. Then choose "New Chart" option.
Opening XAU/USD Chart on MetaTrader 4 Software
After clicking “New Chart,” you can pick Gold (or XAUUSD) from the “Spot Metals” list.
Opening XAUUSD Trading Chart in MT4 Platform
More Tutorials & Lessons:
- How to Trade Fibo Pullback vs Fibo Extension
- How Can You Trade an Upward XAUUSD Trend?
- Bollinger Band Technical Gold Indicator Analysis
- XAU/USD Platform Software MT5 Placing Arrows in XAU/USD Charts in MT5 Platform
- What's the Interpretation of Charts?
- Customizing and Arranging Charts Tool-bars on MT4 XAU/USD Trade Software/Platform
