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New York Gold Market
The less than polite gold trading pit at the COMEX or the “ New York Gold Market” opens at 8:20 A.M. Eastern Time and begins operations while the London Market is still open. The highly charged auction atmosphere of COMEX stands in stark contrast to the restrained, dignified arrangement in London. We have all seen the video clips: frantic traders shouting at each other, waving their arms, pointing fingers, making hand signals – a picture of seeming confusion and anarchy. Interestingly, throughout the apparent chaos runs a thread of perfect order. Buys and sells are actually matched and prices are set. as is typical, traders in the pit are young men and women for an obvious reason, the frenzy takes its toll. After the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001, which hit at the heart of New York’s financial district, the trading day was shortened. The COMEX gold market now closes at 1:30 P.M. Eastern time.
From 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued his executive order seizing Americans’ gold, until 1975, when President Gerald Ford signed legislation relegalizing it. Gold did not trade formally in the United States. With gold’s relegalization, interest from the public and financial community grew very quickly. COMEX moved to meet that interest with its well-known one hundred ounce futures contract. From the 1970s until now, COMEX came to be the dominant price-setting market. London challenges that dominance but still has to supplant it.
COMEX works on a wide trading floor in the World Financial Center in downtown Manhattan. The price generated on the trading floor is the same one which is flashed on the trading screens all around the United States and around the earth, and used by gold firms as a base for pricing bullion and bullion coins. With the advent of the Internet, those prices are available by subscription in either real or delayed time, which most brokers and traders refer to continuously during the business day. “COMEX price” and “New York price” are terms often used interchangeably by most gold firms. After-hours futures trading is conducted via the NYMEX ACCESS Internet-based trading platform after COMEX closes. ACCESS trading starts at 3:15 P.M. Eastern Time, from Monday through Thursday, and ends at 8:00 A.M. the following day. Trading starts for the week on Sunday at 7:00 P.M.
