Gold price discovery
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—AgAu index
Loading evidence…
Financial-ledMixedPhysical
Financial evidence—
Physical confirmation—
Evidence coverage—
Checking divergence · Comparing price action with physical confirmation.
Market microstructure intelligence
Price DiscoveryPaper vs Physical
Who is moving gold and silver right now? AgAu compares where price moves occur, COMEX financial-market intensity, official macro-event linkage and independent physical-market evidence — without pretending that a single venue controls a fixed percentage of the price.
Price discovery battle · today’s readCalculating who has the upper hand…
LOADINGFinancial—
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Physical—
Evidence—
Financial—
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Physical—
Evidence—
A negative AgAu index means financial-market evidence has the upper hand; a positive reading means physical-market confirmation is stronger. Mixed readings are deliberately shown as too close to call.
Silver price discovery
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—AgAu index
Loading evidence…
Financial-ledMixedPhysical
Financial evidence—
Physical confirmation—
Evidence coverage—
Checking divergence · Comparing price action with physical confirmation.
Where did the price move?
Recent 30-minute COMEX futures bars are grouped into DST-aware Asia, London and New York core-session windows, with an hourly historical backfill extending the test toward one year. Toggle lines on or off, inspect session open/close prices, and test whether the much-discussed Asia-up / New-York-down pattern is actually present.
Gold daily core-session moves
Historical backfill status loading…
The stacker claim — tested
Long Asia, short New York: does it beat simply holding gold?
This is a transparent 1× price-return simulation using the same core-session windows above. It is flat outside Asia and New York and excludes costs, slippage, financing and tax. The 6M/1Y view mixes exact recent 30-minute observations with an older 1-hour backfill, so historical boundary prices are approximate.
Calculating…
Long Asia——
Short New York——
Long Asia + short NY——
Buy & hold——
Sample—
Average strategy day—
Median strategy day—
Max drawdown—
Ex best 5 days—
NY on FOMC days—compounded / sample
NY on other days—compounded / sample
How to read this: a positive result means that session bias existed in the selected AgAu sample; it does not show why it existed. Gold futures trade almost 23 hours a day, so “Asia open” and “New York open” here mean defined core-session windows, not literal exchange opening bells.
Long-run evidence: published research on COMEX gold found significantly positive overnight returns and significantly negative daytime returns from 1985–2012, although the asymmetry weakened over time. Separate price-discovery studies find New York futures often lead information incorporation, while longer samples show leadership can switch between London and New York. AgAu therefore tests the return pattern without treating it as evidence of suppression or manipulation.
Financial turnover intensity
The numbers gold bugs often call “paper-to-physical”. AgAu shows them, but labels them correctly: futures turnover and open interest are activity measures, not multiple ownership claims on the same ounce.
Gold — COMEX GC
100 oz / contractListed-contract turnover / registered——
Volume percentile—vs available 12M history
Open interest / registered——
OI percentile—weekly CFTC history
Silver — COMEX SI
5,000 oz / contractListed-contract turnover / registered——
Volume percentile—vs available 12M history
Open interest / registered——
OI percentile—weekly CFTC history
Important: a contract traded during the day can be opened, closed or rolled many times. Open interest is outstanding futures contracts, not a warehouse receipt. These ratios are useful as financial-market intensity indicators — not evidence that hundreds of people own the same bar.
Gold open interest
Does the physical market confirm the move?
Independent physical indicators are kept separate from futures activity so disagreement is visible. No single inventory or coin-sales series is treated as “the” physical market.
Gold physical confirmation
Silver physical confirmation
U.S. Mint bullion demand
Gold Eagle · official monthly ounces soldRetail confirmation only: U.S. Mint sales are useful for spotting stacker/retail demand bursts, but are deliberately given a modest weight because retail coin demand does not normally set the global marginal price.
What actually moved it?
The largest 30-minute moves are matched to the official macro-release engine. This helps show when CPI, payrolls, Fed decisions and other US data explain the dominant burst of price discovery.
Gold — largest recent 30-minute moves
official-event matches within ±1 hour| Time | Move | Session | Official-event match | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loading move attribution… | ||||
The claim vs the evidence
The questions stackers actually ask — answered with the data above rather than slogans.
“There are hundreds of paper ounces for every physical ounce.”
Misleading as statedToday's observed turnover intensity: —. The ratio can be large because futures contracts trade repeatedly. It is not a count of legal ownership claims on registered bars.
“COMEX sets the gold and silver price.”
Partly trueCOMEX is a major global price-discovery venue, particularly during US hours. London OTC, Asian markets and physical arbitrage remain connected parts of the same global market. AgAu measures where price movement is actually occurring.
“Backwardation proves a physical shortage.”
Not by itselfCurrent COMEX structure: —. Backwardation becomes much more interesting when falling registered stocks, deliveries, vault data and other independent physical indicators confirm it.
“Physical demand does not matter because paper sets the price.”
Too simpleFinancial markets can dominate the marginal move while physical buying simultaneously tightens inventories or regional availability. The useful signal is often the divergence between price and physical confirmation.
Reading the evidence balance…
Loading deterministic Price Discovery evidence and the latest consolidated OpenAI interpretation.
Source health & methodology
Official physical/positioning sources are separated from the delayed futures transport. Licensed benchmark series are deliberately excluded rather than scraped and republished.