London gold market has a long history, and its development history can be traced back to more than 300 years ago. 1804, London replaced Amsterdam in the Netherlands as the world gold trading center. 19 19, the London gold market was formally established, and gold was priced twice every morning and afternoon. The gold market price of that day was set by the five major gold banks, which has been affecting the transactions between new york and Hongkong. The supplier of market gold is mainly South Africa. Before 1982, the London gold market was mainly engaged in spot trading of gold. In April 1982, the London futures gold market opened. At present, London is still the largest gold market in the world.
London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) officially opened on 1982, which is the earliest and most active financial futures exchange in Europe. Although the establishment of the exchange is ten years later than the earliest financial trading market in the United States, it is still of great significance to maintain London's position as a traditional financial center.
19 19 September 12 am 1 1 produced the first gold fixing, when the price of gold was set at 4 pounds, 8 shillings and 9 pence per ounce. The first few days were telephone quotations, and then it was decided to hold a formal meeting in the office of Rothschild Bank in Xin Street, Switzerland. Today, the price of gold is fixed twice a day, 10:30 am and 3:00 pm.
The fixing price of gold in London is unique. Different from other gold markets, it only provides a single gold trading quotation for traders in the market. The standard price it provides is widely used as the middle price by producers, consumers and central banks. There are five bank members involved in the pricing, and each time they set the price, they send a representative to participate. These people keep in touch with their trading halls by telephone during the booking process.
At the beginning of each order, the chairman (who has been the representative of Lohill Bank since 19 19) announced an opening price to the other four representatives, who reported to their trading hall and then passed it on to their customers. The bank instructed their representatives to announce whether they would buy or sell at this price according to the orders they received. As long as there are buyers and sellers at this price, they will be asked how many gold bricks they need to trade.
If there is only buying or selling at this price, or the quantity of buying and selling of gold bricks is unbalanced, the price will fluctuate up and down, and the above procedure will be repeated until it is balanced, so the chairman announces the firm offer. If the number of buyers and sellers is less than 25, a firm offer will be announced. If necessary, the pricing process will continue until both buyers and sellers are satisfied. Usually it only takes 15 minutes or less, but sometimes it takes more than an hour.
Customers can place orders in advance before pricing. You can also understand the price changes in the whole pricing process and change the order at any time until the quotation is fixed. In order to ensure that the chairman can know the change of any order quickly, every representative has a small flag on his desk. When he hears the change request from his trading floor, he will immediately hang it up. As long as the flag is held, the chairman will not announce the price limit.