Measured by the World Bank's monthly averages, gold cost $35.27 an ounce in January 1960 and $4,319 in September 2026. The rise came in runs. The run to January 1980 and the run to September 2011 each ended in a fall that took years to make back, and the latest run produced the highest monthly average in the series, $5,020 in February 2026.
Every price on this page is a monthly average, or an average of monthly averages for a year or a decade. An average is not the highest price of its period, so none of these figures is the highest price gold has traded at. For gold's moves inside the day in 2026, see the XAU/USD market page.
The 1960s: a fixed price
From January 1960 to December 1967 no monthly average was below $35 or above $35.27. The price was held there: US dollars were convertible to gold at a fixed $35 an ounce, and from November 1961 eight central banks pooled their gold to keep the London price at that level, as the Federal Reserve's history of the period sets out. The first monthly average above $35.27 is January 1968's, $36, and 1968 averaged $38.92.
The 1970s run to January 1980
The US closed its gold window on 15 August 1971, after which foreign governments could no longer exchange their dollars for gold. The monthly average was $35 in January 1970 and $455 in December 1979, and the run's highest monthly average came in January 1980, at $675.
Four of the five largest yearly rises since 1971 belong to this run, each measured on the annual average: 1973 (+67.3%), 1974 (+63.6%), 1979 (+58.8%) and 1980 (+98.2%). It did not rise every year: the 1976 average was 22.4% below 1975's.
The long fall after 1980
From January 1980 the monthly average fell, with some rises on the way, to $256 in July 1999, 62.1% below the January 1980 figure. The 1981 annual average was 24.4% lower than 1980's, the largest yearly fall since 1971, and 1982's was 18.3% lower again.
No monthly average passed $675 until April 2007, at $679: 327 months, a little over 27 years, after January 1980. Taken decade by decade, the average for the 1990s was $351, the only decade lower than the one before it.
From 2000 to the September 2011 peak
The monthly average was $284 in January 2000 and $1,135 in December 2009. Every year from 2002 to 2012 had a higher annual average than the year before, eleven in a row, the longest run of yearly rises since 1971. The highest monthly average of that run was $1,772, in September 2011.
The fall after 2011
The monthly average then fell to a low of $1,076 in December 2015, 39.3% below September 2011, and 2013, 2014 and 2015 each averaged less than the year before. It passed $1,772 again in July 2020, at $1,847: 106 months after September 2011, much shorter than the wait after 1980 but still almost nine years.
Since 2020: the highest monthly averages in the series
The 2020s so far have averaged $2,453, from $1,561 in January 2020 to $4,319 in September 2026. The 2025 annual average, $3,441.50, was 44.1% above 2024's, the largest yearly rise since 1980, and its monthly averages ran from $2,710 in January to $4,309 in December.
The highest monthly average in the series came next, $5,020 in February 2026. The average then fell for five months in a row, to $4,073 in July, rose to $4,411 in August and was $4,319 in September. The nine months of 2026 average $4,552. Every year's average, change and lowest and highest month are in gold price by year.
In August 2026 dollars
Adjusted with the US consumer price index, the January 1980 monthly average is worth $2,906 in August 2026 dollars. No monthly average passed that in real terms until February 2025, 541 months later. February 2026 is the highest in real terms too, at $5,146. The method, and both long falls measured in real terms, are in gold adjusted for inflation.
What the long run means for a gold signal
We post gold signals as short-term trades, each with an entry, a stop and targets, and closed signals are scored on the results page. Monthly averages since 1960 say nothing about where the next one goes.
The shorter-term figures are on other pages. What gold covers in a day is in gold's average daily range, and whether any calendar month has done better than the rest is in is there a best month for gold.
Where the numbers come from
Gold prices are the World Bank's monthly averages from its Commodity Markets "Pink Sheet", in US dollars per troy ounce, January 1960 to September 2026, taken from datasets/gold-prices on GitHub, published under the Public Domain Dedication and License (PDDL). Real prices use the US consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U), all items, not seasonally adjusted, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, via datasets/cpi-us, and are in August 2026 dollars, the latest month in that file. We read both on 24 October 2026. Yearly figures are the average of each year's monthly averages, and decade figures the average of each decade's.
Every closed signal is on the record
The results page lists each closed VIP signal with its entry, stop, targets and outcome, stops included.
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