Paper gold, also known as account gold, refers to paper gold trading. Investors' transaction records are only reflected in the "gold passbook account" opened by individuals in advance, and do not involve the withdrawal of physical gold. The profit model is to buy low and sell high, so as to obtain the difference profit. Compared with physical gold, its transaction is more convenient and faster, and the transaction cost is relatively low, which is suitable for short-term operation of professional investors. At present, three domestic banks have started paper gold business, namely Huang Jinbao of China Bank, Goldsmith of China Industrial and Commercial Bank and Long Jinding of China Construction Bank.

Spot gold (also known as international gold and London gold) refers to physical delivery, such as gold bars and coins. Paper gold is only a virtual book transaction and there is no physical delivery. How many grams of gold are there in your passbook? It's just a bookkeeping symbol, and you can't extract physical gold. It just earns the difference by buying and selling. The former can preserve and increase value, but it takes time. I'm afraid it's not safe to keep gold bars at home. I can rent a safe in the bank. Because the latter does not involve physical objects, there is no potential safety hazard, but it is also necessary to grasp the market when trading.

The basic concept of futures:

Futures is a standardized contract and a unified and long-term "commodity" contract. Buying and selling futures contracts is actually a promise to buy or sell a certain number of "commodities" in the future ("commodities" can be physical commodities such as soybeans and copper, as well as financial products such as stock indexes and foreign exchange). Strictly speaking, futures is not a commodity, but a standardized commodity contract, which stipulates that both parties to the transaction will trade a specific commodity or financial asset in the future according to the contract content. Futures trading is a trading method relative to spot trading, which is developed on the basis of spot trading and is an organized trading method by buying and selling standardized futures contracts on futures exchanges. The object of futures trading is not the commodity (subject matter) itself, but the standardized contract of the commodity (subject matter)

Futures gold price is the price of buying gold at a fixed price in the future, which is the price agreed with others. That is to say, no matter what the current gold price (spot gold price) is, you must deliver gold at the agreed price (futures gold price).

Futures gold prices in the market are all related to time, such as three-month futures gold prices, six-month futures gold prices and so on. Futures prices are also related to spot prices. For example, if the price of gold rises now, the price of futures may also rise, unless many people expect the price of gold to fall sharply in the future.

In short, the futures gold price reflects the gold price after a period of time.

More specifically, let me give you an example:

At present, the spot price of gold in the market is US$ 800 per ounce. I expect the price of gold will rise in the future, so I bought a three-month gold futures with a delivery price of US$ 805 per ounce in the futures exchange. By the end of three months, the price of gold in the spot market is US$ 850, so I can still buy gold at the agreed price of US$ 805 with others, and then I can buy it at the spot market for US$ 855.

Note: In practice, spot delivery is rare and generally closed. This is just to illustrate the principle of futures.