Gold Spread Comparison

Finding out which broker has the best spreads for trading gold

Gold spreads from different brokers

Gold has been super active recently, and so of course it’s been a great market to trade.

But as always with these things, activity means every broker under the sun trying to claim ‘razor sharp’ spreads on Gold (sometimes called XAUUSD, which is gold vs dollar) or spreads “from”…yeah, yeah, heard it before pal 🙄

Weirdly, all the so-called broker comparison sites out there just give you headline figures, the promo bs. Pulled straight from the marketing desk.

That’s no use to you or me. I want to know the real gold spread.

So, I used a very scientific method worthy of some science award…

I put ten brokers’ live gold prices on my screen and took a screenshot.

The brokers I selected, for no other reason than that they are probably some of the most popular, regulated and have been around a while.

Battling it out for the best gold spread, we’ve got:

  1. CMC
  2. IG
  3. Pepperstone
  4. City Index
  5. Capital
  6. FXCM
  7. Plus 500
  8. Oanda
  9. Forex
  10. Trading 212

Just one point in time, specifically 10.37 am on Thursday, 23rd April. All brokers at the same time. No data, no fast markets, no unusual volatility, just a typical Thursday morning.

These were the gold spreads at that time. In no particular order:

  • Capital = 0.5pts
  • FXCM = 0.3pts
  • IG = 0.5pts
  • Plus 500 = 0.78pts
  • CMC = 0.2pts
  • Pepperstone = 0.24pts
  • Oanda = 0.48pts
  • City Index = 0.6pts
  • Trading 212 = 1.01pts
  • Forex = 0.86pts

I want to point out something weird about the way brokers quote the gold spread.

At 10.37am, gold vs USD was trading at 4,700, and each broker’s quotes are slightly different as these are CFDs or spread bets.

Now, Capital had gold at 4699.58 – 4700.08 and they call that a 0.50 pt spread
FXCM had gold at 4699.73 – 4700.03 and they call that a 30 pt spread. 

Look…

FXCM gold spread
FXCM Gold Spread
Capital Gold spread
Capital Gold Spread

So FXCM’s 30pt is actually tighter than Capital’s 0.5pt, despite looking bigger. Exactly the kind of nonsense I’m sorting out here….

I find that quite annoying as it makes shopping around for the best value broker on gold hard to do, but it is what it is… I’ve allowed for it, and just so you know, converted all into 0.xx format for easy comparison.

Another tricky thing here with gold spreads is that a lot of brokers have variable spreads… so what do I do to keep it fair here? 

As I said earlier, I just took a screenshot at a point in time. If that broker was suddenly at its widest at that time, not much I can do about it. Let’s face it, in the real world, if we see a trading opportunity and want to get in immediately, that’s exactly like taking a screenshot right, you either get lucky with a tight spread or you don’t…

To try and make it fair, I did watch the spreads for a few minutes and noted down the extremes, noting down who was fixed over my observation period and who was not.

Lowest gold spreads, ranked from best to worst

  1. CMC 0.2pts
  2. Pepperstone 0.24pts
  3. FXCM 0.3pts
  4. Oanda 0.48pts
  5. IG and Capital 0.5pts
  6. City Index 0.6pts
  7. Plus 500 0.78pts
  8. Forex 0.86pts
  9. Trading 212 1.01pts

During observation, at times I saw

  • Oanda increasing to 0.79pts
  • Capital increasing to 0.75pts
  • City Index increasing to 1pt
  • Pepperstone decreasing to 0.15pts

Actually, Pepperstone were unlucky with the “TM official screenshot”; if it had been a few minutes later, they’d have taken the top spot. But rules are rules!

CMC Markets takes the top spot for the tightest spread on gold, with a 0.2pt spread (that I didn’t see change)

Honourable mention for Pepperstone, who I observed going down to 0.15pts at one point, but not during the screenshot.

So there you have it… Do your own research, of course. This was only taken at a single point in time. Spreads are variable; things change.

But you can see how extreme the differences are. 0.15pts – 1.01pts… that’s a massive saving over a month/year if you trade gold!

If you trade indices, it might be worth checking out my Dax spread comparison and FTSE spread comparison, too.

 And if you’re new to trading gold, I’ve got a full guide to spread betting gold here.

Rarely is one broker the best for everything.