1. trading time: spot gold consists of Asian, European and American plates. Its trading time is 24 hours, and investors can trade at any time of the day. But futures have a trading time limit. In China, the trading time of Shanghai Gold on the Shanghai Stock Exchange just missed the beginning of the European and American markets where the price of gold fluctuated the most.
2. Trading rules: Spot gold is traded on the floor, which means that if you want to buy or sell, you can successfully facilitate the transaction at any time, but futures is a matching transaction. When the big market comes, there may be cases of non-delivery, which to some extent infinitely increases the risk of investors.
3. Leverage ratio: The leverage ratio of spot gold is 1 to 100. As long as you pay a deposit of $65,438+0,000, you can do primary trading, but futures need much more funds, and the demand for funds is large, so the corresponding risks are great.
The most basic part of the gold market, in which the suppliers are mainly gold mines and gold smelting enterprises, and the demanders are mainly gold products manufacturers and jewelers.
Gold reserve is also the formulation and implementation institution of monetary policy and an important force affecting the gold market. When the central bank needs to increase its gold reserves, it is an important demander of the gold market, and when the central bank wants to reduce its gold reserves, it is also an important supplier of the gold market. Central banks in major western countries generally mainly sell gold, while R is engaged in "lending gold business", and more often appears as a supplier.
Commercial banks: Commercial banks have multiple identities in the gold market. The gold business of commercial banks is very complicated. Some of their businesses are to carry out the gold business of the central bank, and some are to carry out the gold business on behalf of customers. From this point of view, commercial banks are important intermediaries in the gold market, and their agency business covers both gold wholesale and gold retail. On the other hand, commercial banks also have some gold self-operated businesses, and they also have the identity of gold self-dealers.
Financial investment instruments are also an indispensable and important investment variety in investors' investment portfolio. There are a lot of gold investors in the world, including institutional investors and individual investors. The most important funds among institutional investors include the following two categories:
① Traditional funds: refer to traditional commodity funds and hedge funds.
② Exchange-traded Gold Fund (ETFS): This is a new fund in the securities market in recent years. The fund issues fund shares in the securities market, and then invests the funds raised by the fund in gold. Usually, each fund unit is equal to 65,438+0/65,438+00 ounces of gold.
Intermediaries in gold market: such as gold exchanges, agents, brokers, market makers, etc. Intermediaries play the role of organizing transactions, serving investors and communicating with all parties involved in the market, and only play the role of activating market transactions and giving full play to the functions of the gold market from summer to sun.
From the composition of the gold market, we can see that the global gold supply mainly consists of three parts: one is mineral gold, which is a new gold in the world; Second, the central bank sells gold, that is, the gold reserves of various countries flow to the market; Third, the recovered gold, that is, the gold held by consumers (mainly jewelry) has become money.
The demand for gold mainly consists of two parts: one is gold processing and industrial mining, that is, the actual consumption part; The second is the demand for gold investment, including the increase of gold reserves by the central bank and the investment demand of institutional and individual investors. Trading plays an important role in the role of the gold market.