Metal Prices Today
Live spot prices for precious and base metals, updated every 30 seconds.
Precious Metals
Gold trades over $200 billion a day across COMEX futures, LBMA OTC markets, and ETFs, making it one of the most liquid assets in the world. Central banks hold it as a reserve asset, investors buy it as an inflation hedge, and jewelers in India and China drive consistent physical demand.
Silver sits at the intersection of investment and industry. About half of annual silver demand comes from industrial uses like solar panels, electronics, and medical devices. The other half is split between investment (coins, bars, ETFs) and jewelry. This mix gives silver more volatility than gold, and the gold-to-silver ratio has swung between 40:1 and 90:1 over the years.
Platinum and palladium are platinum group metals with supply concentrated in South Africa and Russia. Catalytic converters account for over 40% of platinum demand and roughly 80% of palladium demand. Platinum is also gaining traction in hydrogen fuel cells, while palladium faces a longer-term headwind from the shift toward EVs, which don't need catalytic converters.
Base Metals
Copper is the most widely watched industrial metal. It goes into wiring, plumbing, roofing, renewable energy systems, EVs, and data centers. Global demand runs above 25 million metric tons a year, with Chile and Peru mining about 40% of the world's supply.
Aluminum is the most produced non-ferrous metal globally, valued for being lightweight, strong, and recyclable. China accounts for over 55% of production, so Chinese smelter output and energy policy have an outsized effect on prices. Nickel is seeing a shift in demand: Class 1 nickel for EV battery cathodes now commands a premium over the lower-purity grades used in stainless steel.
Zinc is used mainly for galvanizing steel, with China consuming about half of global output. Lead remains important for lead-acid batteries in vehicles and backup power, though it's a slower-growth market compared to lithium-ion.
Lithium, Uranium & Steel
Lithium powers the batteries in EVs, phones, and grid storage. Demand has grown more than 300% since 2020 and prices can swing sharply depending on Chinese battery-maker purchasing, Australian and Chilean mine output, and new extraction capacity coming online.
Uranium fuels nuclear plants that produce about 10% of the world's electricity. After years of low prices following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, uranium has recovered as governments look to nuclear as a carbon-free baseload source. New reactor builds in China, India, and Europe, along with aging mine supply, have tightened the market.
Steel is the most used metal by volume at over 1.8 billion metric tons a year. Prices depend on iron ore and coking coal costs, Chinese production quotas, and construction activity. Hot-rolled coil and rebar futures on the LME and SHFE serve as the main benchmarks.
Where Metal Prices Come From
COMEX (CME Group, Chicago) is the main futures exchange for gold, silver, copper, and aluminum. Daily gold futures volume alone exceeds $80 billion. The London Metal Exchange (LME) handles base metals like copper, aluminum, nickel, zinc, and lead through both its historic open-outcry ring and electronic trading.
The LBMA runs twice-daily gold and silver benchmark auctions referenced by central banks, miners, refiners, and jewelers worldwide. In Asia, the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) and Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) are growing in importance as China is the largest consumer of most metals.
MetalCharts pulls real-time data from these exchanges and combines it into a single view with spot prices, futures, and historical charts for every metal on this page.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is the difference between precious and base metals?
- Precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium) are rare, corrosion-resistant, and have been used as stores of value for centuries. Central banks still hold gold as a reserve asset, and silver sees strong investment demand alongside its industrial uses. Base metals (copper, aluminum, nickel, zinc, lead) are more abundant and traded primarily for industrial purposes. Copper goes into wiring and plumbing, aluminum into vehicles and packaging, nickel into stainless steel and EV batteries.
- What drives gold prices?
- The biggest factor is real interest rates: when rates fall, gold tends to rise because there is less opportunity cost in holding a non-yielding asset. The US dollar also matters since gold is priced in dollars, so a weaker dollar makes gold cheaper for foreign buyers. Beyond that, central bank buying (which has been consistently positive since 2010), geopolitical uncertainty, inflation expectations, and physical jewelry demand from India and China all play a role.
- Why is copper called 'Dr. Copper'?
- Copper shows up in nearly every part of the economy: construction, electronics, transportation, power grids, and telecoms. Because of this, its price tends to move with global GDP. When activity picks up, copper demand rises and the price follows. When things slow down, copper usually falls first. Traders have relied on this signal for decades, which is how it got the 'Dr. Copper' nickname. The green energy transition has added another layer of demand, since EVs use 3-4x more copper than conventional cars.
- How are metal spot prices determined?
- Precious metals prices come from a mix of COMEX futures trading, LBMA benchmark auctions (held twice daily in London), and round-the-clock OTC dealing between banks. Base metals are priced mainly on the London Metal Exchange (LME), which still runs an open-outcry trading ring alongside electronic markets. The Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) and Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) are growing in importance, particularly for copper, gold, and silver.
- What metals are used in electric vehicle batteries?
- Lithium is the core cathode material, with nickel added to increase energy density and cobalt for structural stability. Copper is used heavily in EV wiring, motors, and charging stations: a typical EV contains about 83 kg of copper versus 23 kg in a gasoline car. Aluminum goes into body panels to save weight. Platinum and palladium show up in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as catalysts. Demand from the EV sector is reshaping the supply-demand picture for all of these metals.
- What is the LBMA gold price and how is it set?
- The LBMA Gold Price is the global benchmark, set at 10:30 AM and 3:00 PM London time via an electronic auction run by ICE Benchmark Administration. Participants submit buy and sell orders, and the system finds the price where supply matches demand. Miners, refiners, central banks, jewelers, and ETF providers all reference this number. It replaced the old telephone-based London Gold Fix in 2015.