Gold futures (GC) tick value is $10.00 per tick ($0.10 move); Micro Gold (MGC) is $1.00 per tick. A full $1.00 move is worth $100 on GC and $10 on MGC. Enter any move below to get the exact dollar value.
Contract specs verified against CME Group · Last updated September 2026
| GC — Gold | MGC — Micro Gold | |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange | COMEX (CME Group) | COMEX (CME Group) |
| Contract size | 100 troy oz | 10 troy oz |
| Tick size | $0.10 / oz | $0.10 / oz |
| Tick value | $10.00 | $1.00 |
| Point value ($1 move) | $100.00 | $10.00 |
| Contract months | Every calendar month | Feb, Apr, Jun, Aug, Oct, Dec |
| Trading hours | Nearly 24 hours, Sunday evening through Friday afternoon ET, with a daily maintenance break | |
| Margin | Changes with volatility — check CME Group or your broker for today's figure | |
Gold trades on different logic than most commodities — it isn't consumed the way corn or crude oil is; it's held. That's the key to understanding what actually moves the price.
Gold pays no interest, so its appeal rises and falls with the opportunity cost of holding it instead of a yield-bearing asset like a Treasury note. When the Fed cuts rates or signals it will, real yields fall — and gold typically benefits.
Gold is priced in dollars, so a weaker dollar mechanically makes gold cheaper for the rest of the world and tends to support the price. A European or Japanese buyer needs fewer euros or yen to buy the same ounce, demand rises, and that demand pushes the dollar price back up. It's a strong tendency, not a fixed rule — gold can rise without dollar weakness too.
Central banks — especially in emerging markets — have been steady net buyers of gold for years as part of diversifying away from dollar-denominated reserves. That creates a demand floor that isn't very price-sensitive.
Gold's oldest role: when geopolitical risk spikes, capital rotates toward an asset that isn't tied to any single country's financial system.
Unlike silver, gold has almost no industrial use — it's driven almost entirely by monetary and safe-haven forces rather than manufacturing demand. Worth knowing if you trade both metals side by side.
Gold trades nearly 24 hours across Asia, London, and COMEX sessions. Volatility tends to cluster around the London fix windows, the COMEX pit-hours open, and major US data releases (CPI, NFP, FOMC).
Gold's strength this year leans on a handful of specific threads rather than one dominant narrative. Markets are pricing in further Fed rate cuts, which lowers real yields and reduces the opportunity cost of holding a non-yielding asset like gold. A modest but sustained dollar depreciation, tied to that same easing path, is adding further support. Central banks — particularly in China, Qatar, and Oman — continue diversifying reserves away from the dollar, providing a persistent price floor independent of investor sentiment. Institutional portfolios also remain broadly underexposed to gold relative to history, meaning even modest reallocation into the metal could extend the current move.
Order flow and liquidity heatmap — useful around the COMEX open when gold's depth shifts fast.
Charting and screening across GC, MGC, and correlated markets like DXY and silver.
Journal gold trades, size positions against real risk, and build discipline around the news-driven whipsaws this market throws.
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Tick value, point value, and margin notes for GC and MGC in one reference. Drop your email and it unlocks below.
$10.00 per tick on the standard GC contract, $1.00 per tick on Micro Gold (MGC). Both share the same $0.10 tick size — only the contract size differs.
A $1.00 move is worth $100 per contract on GC and $10 per contract on MGC.
Ten. The minimum tick is $0.10, so it takes 10 ticks to make a full $1.00 move, on both GC and MGC.
MGC tracks the identical gold price at one-tenth the size and one-tenth the dollar risk per tick, which makes it easier to size positions precisely on a smaller account.
Usually, yes, inversely — gold is priced in dollars, so a weaker dollar tends to lift the price. It's a strong tendency, not a fixed rule; central bank buying and safe-haven demand can move gold independently of the dollar.