Reference
Precious Metals Glossary
Plain-English definitions of 54 terms used across the gold, silver, and wider metals markets: pricing and benchmark vocabulary, futures and delivery mechanics, physical bullion terminology, the market institutions behind the numbers, and the element symbols and metal families the industry abbreviates with. Every entry links to the live MetalCharts data page where you can see the concept in action.
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Prices & Benchmarks
- Troy ounce
- The standard unit of weight for precious metals, and the answer to what a troy ounce is: 31.1035 grams, about 10% heavier than the everyday (avoirdupois) 28.3495 gram ounce. All spot prices, futures contracts, and bullion products are weighed in troy ounces. The conversions worth memorizing: how many grams in a troy ounce, 31.1035 (so converting troy oz to grams means multiplying by 31.1035, and grams to troy ounces means dividing by it); one kilogram equals 32.1507 troy ounces; a troy pound contains exactly 12 troy ounces, while a regular avoirdupois pound, the kind on a bathroom scale, works out to 14.58 troy ounces. So a pound of gold in everyday terms contains about 14.58 troy ounces of metal, not 16. These conversions sit behind every per-gram and per-kilo price on this site.
- Spot price
- The current market price for one troy ounce of metal delivered immediately, at wholesale scale. It is discovered continuously by COMEX futures and London OTC trading and serves as the reference line for every dealer quote and premium. See the full guide: what is spot price.
- Bid-ask spread
- The gap between the highest price buyers will pay (bid) and the lowest price sellers will accept (ask). It is the baseline cost of transacting: tight in deep wholesale markets, wider at retail, and wider still for illiquid products. Published single-number spot quotes are usually the midpoint of the two.
- Melt value
- The value of an item's pure metal content at the current spot price, ignoring any collectible, brand, or fabrication value. Calculated as pure metal weight times spot. It is the floor value of coins, jewelry, and scrap; real-world offers sit somewhat below it. Compute any item instantly with the melt calculator.
- Fineness
- Metal purity expressed in parts per thousand. A .999 fine silver bar is 99.9% pure; .9999 gold (four nines) is 99.99% pure. Contract standards specify minimum fineness: COMEX silver requires at least .999, COMEX and Good Delivery gold at least .995. Fineness determines how much pure metal a given gross weight contains.
- Karat
- The jewelry-world purity scale for gold, measured in 24ths. Pure gold is 24 karat; 18K is 75% gold, 14K is 58.3%, and 10K is 41.7%. Karat purity is why an ounce of 14K jewelry is worth far less than an ounce of bullion. Per-karat live prices: 18K, 14K, 24K.
- LBMA Gold Price (London fix)
- The daily auction benchmark for gold, set at 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM London time via an electronic auction administered by ICE Benchmark Administration; the silver equivalent is set once daily at noon. These benchmarks, successors to the old London fixes, settle contracts and value ETFs worldwide. They are scheduled snapshots of the same market that sets spot.
- Gold-silver ratio
- The gold price divided by the silver price: how many ounces of silver one ounce of gold buys. One of the oldest relative-value gauges in metals, historically ranging from below 20 to above 120. A falling ratio means silver is outperforming gold. Track it live on the gold-silver ratio page.
- Basis
- The difference between a futures price and the spot price of the same metal. In normal markets the basis reflects carry costs (financing, storage, insurance) and shrinks as a contract approaches delivery. An abnormal basis signals stress: the early 2025 gold dislocation and October 2025 silver squeeze both appeared first as basis moves.
Futures & Delivery
- Futures contract
- A standardized exchange agreement to deliver a fixed quantity of metal on a set future date. The COMEX gold contract covers 100 troy ounces; silver covers 5,000 troy ounces in 1,000 oz bars. Most contracts are closed or rolled before delivery, but the delivery option is what tethers futures prices to physical metal.
- Front month
- The nearest actively traded futures contract month, carrying the most volume and open interest. Most live price feeds derive their spot quote from the front month because it is the most liquid continuously traded reference. As expiry approaches, activity migrates to the next major month in a predictable rolling calendar.
- Contango
- The normal futures-curve shape in which later delivery months cost more than near months and spot, reflecting the interest, storage, and insurance costs of carrying metal through time. Contango creates roll costs for perpetual futures longs. Its inverse is backwardation. Explained fully in gold futures vs spot.
- Backwardation
- The inverted curve state in which spot and near-month prices exceed later months, meaning the market pays a premium for metal now. Rare in gold and silver, and diagnostic of physical scarcity or a lending squeeze, as when London spot silver traded above futures during the record October 2025 squeeze.
- Rolling (a futures position)
- Closing an expiring futures contract and opening a later month to maintain exposure. In contango each roll sells cheap and buys dear, creating a small recurring cost (roll drag) that makes perpetually rolled long positions lag the metal itself over time. In backwardation the effect reverses and rolling earns a yield.
- EFP (Exchange for Physical)
- A privately negotiated swap of a futures position for an equivalent physical or OTC position, quoted as a price differential. The EFP is the bridge between COMEX futures and London physical metal, and its spread is a stress gauge: it blew out to roughly $50 per ounce for gold during the early 2025 tariff scare.
- Open interest
- The total number of futures contracts outstanding (not yet closed, delivered, or expired). Rising open interest with rising prices suggests new money entering; falling open interest on a rally suggests short covering. Comparing front-month open interest with registered inventory is the standard way to assess delivery-month tightness.
- Margin (futures)
- The collateral a futures trader must post to hold a position: initial margin to open it, maintenance margin to keep it. Margin makes futures leveraged; adverse moves trigger margin calls. Exchange margin hikes have historically punctured speculative metal spikes, most famously in the 1980 Hunt brothers silver episode.
- Warehouse warrant
- An electronic document of title covering specific serial-numbered bars in an exchange-approved depository. Warrants are the instrument actually transferred when a COMEX futures contract goes to physical delivery, and metal with an active warrant is counted as registered. Issuing or cancelling a warrant reclassifies metal without moving it.
- Registered (COMEX inventory)
- Exchange-depository metal with an active warehouse warrant, deliverable against futures contracts immediately. Registered stocks are the hard ceiling on near-term physical settlement, which makes the registered column the most-watched inventory figure. See the full explainer: registered vs eligible, with live data on COMEX silver.
- Eligible (COMEX inventory)
- Metal stored in an exchange-approved depository that meets all contract specifications (bar size, fineness, approved brand) but has no warrant attached, so it cannot settle a delivery until its owner registers it. Eligible metal is privately owned reserve inventory: qualified, present, but not currently offered for delivery.
- Delivery notice
- The formal notification that a futures short intends to deliver physical metal against a contract during the delivery month. The buyer receiving delivery (the stopper) obtains a warehouse warrant. Daily notice counts, published by CME Group, show how much of the registered float is actually being claimed in any month.
- First notice day
- The first day on which delivery notices can be issued for an expiring futures month. Traders who do not intend to make or take delivery must exit or roll positions before it, which concentrates the rolling calendar and often shifts volume to the next month days in advance.
- COT report
- The Commitments of Traders report, published weekly by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), breaking down futures positioning by trader category (producers, swap dealers, managed money). Extreme speculative positioning often precedes reversals, making the COT a staple of metals analysis. Charted weekly on the MetalCharts COT dashboard.
Physical Bullion
- Bullion
- Precious metal in bulk form valued by weight and purity rather than face value or rarity: bars, ingots, rounds, and non-numismatic coins. Bullion is the investment-grade form of metal, priced as spot plus a premium, as opposed to jewelry (which adds making charges) and numismatics (which add collectible value).
- Good Delivery bar
- A bar meeting the LBMA's Good Delivery standard, the quality benchmark of the wholesale market. Gold bars contain 350 to 430 fine troy ounces (roughly 400 oz) at .995+ fineness; silver bars weigh roughly 1,000 troy ounces at .999+. Only bars from accredited refiners settle in the London market, and 1,000 oz silver bars are also the COMEX deliverable.
- Assay
- The analytical test that determines a metal's purity, performed by refiners and independent laboratories. Bullion bars often ship with an assay certificate stating weight and fineness, and sealed assay cards are standard packaging for small minted bars. An assay is the evidentiary basis of every fineness stamp.
- Hallmark
- An official series of stamped marks certifying a precious metal item's purity, applied by assay offices in jurisdictions that regulate them (the UK system dates to a statute of 1300). On bullion bars, the analogous markings are the refiner's brand, weight, fineness, and serial number, which together make bars traceable and tradeable.
- Sovereign coin
- A bullion coin issued by a government mint with legal-tender status: the American Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf, South African Krugerrand, Austrian Philharmonic, and UK Britannia are the majors. Sovereign coins carry higher premiums than generic products but enjoy universal recognition and the strongest resale liquidity of any retail bullion form.
- Round
- A coin-shaped piece of bullion produced by a private mint rather than a government. Rounds have no face value or legal-tender status, which exempts them from the sovereign-mint cost chain and makes them among the cheapest ways to buy silver and gold per ounce, at the cost of somewhat lower resale recognition.
- Junk silver
- Pre-1965 US dimes, quarters, and half dollars containing 90% silver, traded purely for melt value with no collectible premium. Each $1 of face value contains approximately 0.715 troy ounces of pure silver. Prized for low premiums, divisibility, and recognizability. Full details in the junk silver guide.
- Numismatic value
- The collectible worth of a coin above its metal content, driven by rarity, condition, date, and demand from collectors. Numismatic premiums on proofs and commemoratives marketed as investments rarely survive resale, which is why bullion buyers are routinely advised to pay for metal, not marketing.
- Face value
- The legal-tender denomination stamped on a coin, almost always far below its metal value for bullion coins (a one ounce American Silver Eagle carries a $1 face value). Face value matters mainly as a legal formality, though junk silver is quoted in multiples of face value by market convention.
- Legal tender
- Currency that must legally be accepted in settlement of debts. Sovereign bullion coins are technically legal tender at their face value, a status that confers government authentication of weight and purity and, in some jurisdictions, favorable tax treatment (UK residents pay no capital gains tax on Britannias, for example).
- Allocated storage
- Vault storage in which specific, serial-numbered bars or coins are legally titled to you. Allocated metal is your property, off the custodian's balance sheet, and immune to its insolvency. It costs more than unallocated arrangements but eliminates counterparty credit exposure, which is the reason most large holders insist on it.
- Unallocated metal
- A claim on a metal balance rather than on specific bars: you are an unsecured creditor of the provider, who owes you ounces. Unallocated accounts are the cheap, liquid workhorse of the London wholesale market, but they carry counterparty risk that allocated storage does not. Most bank precious-metals accounts are unallocated by default.
Markets, Flows & Macro
- COMEX
- The Commodity Exchange, part of CME Group, and the world's dominant precious metals futures exchange, based in New York. COMEX sets the most-watched gold and silver reference prices during US hours and publishes daily warehouse and delivery data. MetalCharts tracks it on the COMEX hub and inventory dashboard.
- LBMA
- The London Bullion Market Association, the trade body that sets the Good Delivery bar standard, oversees the LBMA Gold and Silver Price benchmarks (administered by ICE Benchmark Administration), and publishes monthly statistics on metal held in London vaults. London remains the center of global physical and OTC bullion trading. See LBMA vault data.
- OTC market
- Over-the-counter trading: transactions negotiated directly between counterparties (chiefly bullion banks) rather than on a central exchange order book. The London bullion market is the world's principal OTC metals venue. OTC markets offer flexibility and size but less public transparency than exchanges, which is why London data arrives monthly while COMEX data arrives daily.
- Loco London
- Delivery terms meaning the metal is held in a London vault ("loco" = location). Loco London unallocated balances are the settlement standard of the global OTC market: a dealer in Singapore and a bank in Zurich will typically settle their gold trade as book entries against London metal, two business days after the trade.
- Lease rate
- The annualized cost of borrowing physical metal, usually for one-month terms in the London market. Normally a fraction of a percent, lease rates explode when metal is scarce: one-month silver lease rates hit a record near 35% during the October 2025 London squeeze. Spiking lease rates are the clearest public signal of physical tightness.
- Short squeeze
- A price spiral that occurs when traders with short positions are forced to buy back into a rising, illiquid market, amplifying the rise. Physical squeezes add a second dimension: shorts must locate actual metal. Silver's history is punctuated by squeezes, from the Hunt brothers in 1980 to the London liquidity squeeze of October 2025.
- Supply deficit
- A year in which total demand exceeds mine plus recycling supply, with the gap drawn from above-ground inventories. The Silver Institute's World Silver Survey has recorded a silver deficit every year since 2021 and forecasts a sixth deficit for 2026. Full analysis in the silver supply deficit guide.
- Safe-haven asset
- An asset investors buy during crises expecting it to hold value while risk assets fall. Gold is the canonical safe haven: it carries no counterparty risk, no default risk, and thousands of years of monetary history. Safe-haven flows during geopolitical and banking stress are among the fastest-acting drivers of metal prices.
- Physically backed ETF
- An exchange-traded fund holding allocated bullion in vaults, with each share representing a fractional metal claim; GLD and IAU (gold) and SLV (silver) are the largest. Backed ETFs made metal exposure a brokerage-account commodity and their inflows and outflows are a major, publicly visible demand variable. Compare them on the ETF dashboard.
- MCX
- The Multi Commodity Exchange of India, in Mumbai, where India's benchmark silver (30 kg, rupees per kilogram) and gold futures trade. MCX prices include India's import duty, which is why they sit structurally above converted international prices. The live MCX vs US premium is charted on the India dashboard.
- SGE (Shanghai Gold Exchange)
- China's state-chartered physical gold exchange, where the Au99.99 contract sets the domestic Chinese gold benchmark and the Shanghai Gold Benchmark Price provides a yuan-denominated fix. Because China's bullion imports are controlled, SGE prices routinely diverge from London, creating the closely watched Shanghai premium. Tracked on the SGE dashboard.
- Dollar index (DXY)
- An index measuring the US dollar against a basket of major currencies. Because metals are priced in dollars, a stronger dollar makes them costlier in other currencies and tends to pressure prices, while a weaker dollar supports them. The inverse dollar-gold relationship is among the most persistent in macro markets. See the DXY dashboard.
Element Symbols & Metal Families
- Ag (silver)
- The silver Ag chemical symbol comes from the Latin argentum; silver is element 47 on the periodic table. Markets layer their own shorthand on top: the currency-style ticker XAG denotes silver priced in US dollars, which is why the Ag symbol for silver and XAG refer to the same metal. Both point at the same number, tracked live on the silver price page.
- Cu (copper)
- The copper symbol Cu derives from the Latin cuprum, named for Cyprus, the Roman world's copper island; the copper element is number 29 on the periodic table. In market shorthand, COMEX copper futures trade under the ticker HG (from the old High Grade copper contract), so Cu and HG describe the same metal in chemistry and trading respectively. Live prices on the copper price page.
- Sn (tin)
- The tin symbol Sn comes from the Latin stannum; tin is element 50. Tin is the smallest of the LME base metal markets by volume, quoted in US dollars per metric tonne, and its price is dominated by solder demand from electronics manufacturing. Concentrated supply from Indonesia, Myanmar, and China makes it one of the most disruption-prone metals. Tracked on the tin price page.
- Pb (lead)
- The lead symbol Pb abbreviates the Latin plumbum, the root of the word plumbing; the lead element is number 82 on the periodic table. Lead is the densest of the common base metals, and its market is unusually circular: most demand comes from lead-acid batteries, and recycled batteries in turn supply the majority of the metal. LME lead trades in US dollars per metric tonne, charted on the lead price page.
- Non-ferrous metals
- Metals containing no significant iron: copper, aluminum, zinc, lead, tin, and nickel are the industrial core of the group, and the precious metals belong to it too. Non-ferrous metals resist rust, are generally more valuable per pound than steel, and are mostly non-magnetic (nickel is the exception), which is why the scrap-yard magnet test separates ferrous steel from the non-ferrous grades that are paid for separately and better. The LME is the benchmark exchange for the industrial non-ferrous complex; compare them all on the metals dashboard.
Ready to see these concepts with live data? Start with the market dashboards, or go deeper with the guides these definitions link to.