In this post, you’ll find the best forex brokers for trading gold or XAU/USD. You can also see how I chose these top 10 forex brokers from more than 100 brokers and what metrics I considered to do so.
Before all that let’s get straight to the point and introduce our broker.
These are the top 9 forex brokers for gold trading
You'll See in This Article:
Methodology: How I Found Best Forex Brokers for Gold Trading?
There are several factors that you can consider when you want to choose a forex broker for a particular purpose such as gold trading but some metrics are common between broker selections in general.
The one that I always consider first is regulation and then cost of trades such as spreads and commissions.
For selecting our best forex brokers for trading on gold, we use a third party website, myfxbook, where there are more than 100 forex brokers are registered and there are 10000+ registered accounts of those brokers’ clients.
Using that website not only provides a wide range of brokers which makes the study more reliable, but it also gives us unbiased and real data from the real accounts of forex brokers so we can be confident that our metrics especially brokers’ spreads are not selective.
However, there are some mistakes in calculating commission on the software of that website but since I’ve used the website several times, I’m aware of that so I can fix that.
For example, gold is quoted in different digits in different brokers so the widget that sorts out brokers based on spreads isn’t working properly in this case.
It also adds the commission to the wrong digits. In other words, it takes the wrong digit as one pip.
For instance, the broker shows the spread of gold as points like 12.23 which means 1.223 pips (each pip is 10 points)
The software adds for example $7 commission, which is 0.7 as spread, to the 12.23 and shows the spread 12.30 or 1.23 while the real spread is 19.23 or 1.93 pips (1.23 + 0.7).
Anyway, I always double-checked with the brokers’ websites and since I picked the brokers from well-regulated ones, they publish their spreads on their websites and the results are almost the same as I find on myfxbook.
I also chose the brokers from well-regulated ones because you’ll have the least problems in different trading fields such as price manipulation, slippage, or withdrawal.
You can check here to see more information about brokers’ selection based on regulation.
Forex Brokers with the Lowest spread on Gold
As I mentioned in the methodology section, for finding the brokers with the tightest spread on gold we used myfxbook website and sorted them out based on the lowest spread on the gold section.
I also picked them from regulated ones because brokers that are regulated have normally the least problems. So basically they are the regulated forex brokers with the tightest spreads on gold.
The best forex brokers for gold trading based on spreads and commission
Trading Gold CFD
Gold has always been considered a safe asset. Every time something bad happen to the economy whether it’s wild inflation or recession and uncertainty, people start saving their assets by purchasing gold.
Buying gold physically is not the only option for trading gold. You can buy that over the counter (OTC) where you don’t own gold but you can buy and sell that and make a profit out of its fluctuation — like what you do in forex trading.
Moreover, when you trade CFD of gold, you don’t need a lot of money to do so.
Imagine you decide to buy one ounce of gold physically and through exchange trading. Well, you need something like $1500 to buy that — $1520 today.
On the other hand, when you trade CFD gold, you can use leverage as high as 1:500 or even more with the minimum lot size of 0.01 which means you can trade 100 ounces, instead of one ounce, with just $5.
How Much Do You Need to Trade Gold CFD?
Nowadays, you don’t need to be filthy rich to buy 1000000 oz gold. You can borrow the money from your broker and do that.
To know how much money you need to open a position on gold you need to know the required margin for gold. You can calculate the required margin by this formula:
Required Margin = (lot size * Contract size * Market Price) / Leverage
Let’s say your broker offers a 1:500 leverage, a leverage that our selected brokers for gold trading offer, and you use 0.01 as lot size. Considering that contract size for gold is 100 ounces and each ounce is $1500 you required margin is:
(0.01*100*1500)/500= $3
So even with 4 or 5 bucks, you can trade gold.
Just be careful when using leverage because it can be doubled- edge sword if you use it without understanding the risks involved.
You’re using more than your money to trade so when you win, you win more and when you lose; you lose a big portion of your money.
If you want more about why leverage is a doubled-edge sword you can read this part.
Gold Volatility and Average Daily Range
Gold is one of the high volatile assets for trading. According to the study I did, XAUUSD has moved 155 pips (1550 points) per day on average in 2019 so seeing gold move 200 pips per day is not odd.
As a result, the take profit and stop loss should be wider because it has enough potential to reach further targets.
It’s also a good option for scalpers with a little wider targets such as 10 pips.
It can hit a 10-pip target easily plus the spread for gold is not too many. As you can see in the comparison table at the end of this post, you can get less than 1.5 pips spread on average from the best forex brokers for trading gold.
Gold is also considered a suitable instrument for swing trading because when it’s in the trend status, you can rip a lot of money as the result of its wide average daily range.
It moves a lot per day so a usual trend in gold can give you something around 150 to 200 pips on average per day which is ideal if you are even a longer-term trader let alone a day trader.
Gold Correlation
As you probably know when two instruments like forex pairs or CFDs move in the same direction, they have positive correlation and when they move in the opposite direction, they have negative correlation.
For example most of the time when USDCHF is bullish, EURUSD is bearish or vice versa. When two instruments mimic each other’s movement exactly, either in the same direction or opposite, they have a 100% correlation.
XAUUSD or gold has some positive and negative correlation with some assets.
Among currency pairs, EURUSD and AUDUSD have shown the most positive correlation with gold in 2019 with something around 67% maximum positive correlations for AUDUSD and 78% for EURUSD, however, in some months they had negative correlation as well.
On the other hand, USDCAD has had the most negative correlation with gold in 2019 with a maximum correlation of -70%.
You can use correlation when you see a setup in the pair you want to trade but it’s not clear enough or your favorite one.
When you are not confident enough, you may be able to get a confirmation by looking at the pairs that have positive and negative correlations with the pair you want to trade.
Best Forex Brokers for Gold Trading
Broker | General Info | Regulation | Average Spread | Platform | Payment Methods | Banned Countries |
Visit Roboforex | Account Name: ECN-Pro Min deposit: $10 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:1000 for gold, 1:2000 for forex | CySEC, IFSC | 2.15 Pips | MT4,MT5 for Desktop, Web, Mobile R Trader (web) | Bank Wire, VISA, MasterCard, ePayments, FasaPay, Neteller, PaySec, Poli, Qiwi, Skrill, UnionPay, WebMoney, Perfect Money, AdvCash, Yandex Money, and more | US, Canada |
Visit FP Markets | Account Name: RAW Spread (MT4-MT5) Min deposit: AUD $100 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:500 for gold and forex | ASIC | 2.34 Pips | MT4, MT5 for Desktop, Web, Mobile IRESS | Credit/Debit Card, bank wire, Neteller, Skrill, Fasapay, PayPal, Paytrust88, Ngan Luong, Online Pay, Broker to broker | U.S, Japan, New Zealand, Syria, North Korea, Iran |
Visit Axitrader | Account Name: MT4 Pro Min deposit: $1 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:100 for gold, 1:400 for forex | ASIC, FCA | 2.54 Pips | MT4 for Desktop, Web, Mobile MT4 NEXGEN (MT4 with extra features) | Bank Wire, Debit and Credit Cards, BPAY, Neteller, Global Collect, Skrill, UnionPay | U.S, Japan, Israel, Central African Republic, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Sahrawi Republic, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan , Syria, Yemen, Zimbabwe |
Visit Alpari | Account Name: Pro ECN Min deposit: $500 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:500 for gold, 1:3000 for forex | CySEC, IFSC | 2.36 Pips | MT4,MT5 for Desktop, Web, Mobile | Bank Wire, VISA, MasterCard, BitPay, FasaPay, Neteller, Skrill, UnionPay, WebMoney, TC Pay Wallet, Bitcoin, VLoad, and Local bank transfers | US, Mauritius, Japan, Haiti, Suriname, North Korea, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Georgia, New Zealand, Canada. |
Visit Global Prime | Account Name: ECN Min deposit: $200 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:100 for gold, 1:200 for forex | ASIC | 2.38 Pips | MT4 for Desktop, Web, Mobile | Bank Wire, VISA, MasterCard, BPAY, Neteller, Poli | US, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Iran, Canada |
Visit<br /> FBS | Account Name: ECN Min deposit: $1000 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:333 for gold, 1:3000 for forex | CySEC, IFSC | 2.45 Pips | MT4,MT5 for Desktop, Web, Mobile | Wire Transfer, Credit Card, Neteller, PerfectMoney, Skrill they also have local exchangers for some countries that you can find it after registration | US, Belize, Russia, Cyprus |
Visit Admiral Markets | Account Name: MT4 Zero Spread Min deposit: $100 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:500 for gold, 1:500 for forex | ASIC, FCA, CySEC | 2.59 Pips | MT4,MT5 for Desktop, Web, Mobile with extra plugins | For deposit: Bank Wire, VISA, MasterCard, iBank&BankLink, iDEAL, Klarna, Neteller, Safetypay, Przelewy24, Skrill. Withdrawal: Bank Wire, Neteller, Skrill | US, Sudan, Syria, North Korea, Iran |
Visit Just2 trade | Account Name: Forex ECN /MT5 Global Min deposit: $100 Min Lot Size: 0.01 MAX Leverage: 1:100 for gold 1:500 for forex | CySEC | 2.37 Pips | MT4, MT5 for Desktop, Web, Mobile CQG, ROX | Wire transfer, Union Pay, Mastercard, Visa, Skrill , Biicoin, Webmoney | N/A |
If you’re a US resident looking for the best forex brokers for gold trading, check out this post
Thank you for this comprehensive list and comparative details. I used your link to create an FPMarket account.
Happy to hear that you found the broker suitable for your trading style.
I can understand this better. I found fx leaders to have a broker connected to them. Might need to re-evaluate my options.
Thanks for this post!