The world's largest gold exchanges

According to the Gold Survey 2017 conducted by the Thomson Reuters-owned market research company GFMS, by far the largest exchange regarding gold trading is the New York commodity futures exchange COMEX. It was merged with the New York Mercantile Exchange NYMEX in 1994 and today is operated by CME Group, the largest futures exchange in the world. In 2016, COMEX traded 179,047 tonnes of gold, an increase of 38 per cent year-on-year.

Asia ranks second in stock exchange trading of gold

With notably less trading volume than Comex, Chinese gold trading comes in second with a derivatives trading turnover of 34,760 tonnes of gold on the Shanghai Futures Market SHFE, and with stock exchange trading including spot trading of 11,793 tonnes of gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange SGE, which was founded in 2002. Both gold exchanges are growing rapidly. SHFE trading volume increased by 37 per cent while SGE trading volume grew by as much as 62 per cent year-on-year. The year-on-year growth by 8 per cent on Asia's third-largest gold exchange, the Tokyo Commodity Exchange TOCOM, with a trading volume of 8,541 tonnes of gold, seems almost modest by comparison. 

Outside Asia and the US, the Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX) with a trading volume of 4,094 tonnes of gold, the Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange DGCX with 412 tonnes and Borsa Istanbul with 243 tonnes of gold are relevant exchanges for gold trading.

OTC gold trading predominantly London-based

According to the World Gold Council, the traditional London Bullion Market, where the LBMA gold price is quoted twice every trading day, still accounts for around 70 per cent of global bullion trading. The Gold Survey 2017 estimated the correspondent trading volume at around 145,000 tonnes. Exact information is not available, however, as all trading is bilateral.