AED 10.44 between two Dubai gold pages, and holding

§1Five fils from the arithmetic, ten dirhams from the counter.

This paper reported yesterday that two widely quoted Dubai gold pages were publishing different quantities under one label, and left an open question about whether the distance between them would move. It has not. Kitco's live board at 06:00 New York time this morning, the reading this paper's tape now carries, puts gold at $4,372.80 an ounce. At 31.1035 grams to the troy ounce that is $140.59 a gram, and at the dirham's fixed peg of 3.6725 to the dollar it is AED 516.31 a gram, both conversions this desk's arithmetic. LivePriceOfGold's Dubai board, timestamped 11 August at 10:04 UTC, reads AED 516.26. That is five fils from the peg figure, about one hundredth of one per cent. Goodreturns' Dubai page, dated today, reads AED 526.75. The gap is a level, not a drift.

The three readings moved almost in lockstep overnight, which is the new information. Against yesterday's marks the peg figure added AED 3.72 a gram, LivePriceOfGold added AED 3.81 and Goodreturns added AED 3.50. All three moves sit inside AED 0.31 of each other. Yesterday's article described a counter page that had stepped up AED 13.25 between 7 and 8 August against a metal move of AED 3.13 and then held flat for three days while spot kept moving. Today it tracked. The step was a one-off repricing rather than a page that had stopped updating, and the wedge it opened has stayed where it was put.

§2Three readings, one overnight move.

That wedge can now be dated. On 7 August the peg arithmetic gave AED 509.42 against Goodreturns at AED 510.50, a difference of AED 1.08. On 10 August the peg gave AED 512.59 against 523.25, a difference of AED 10.66. Today it is AED 516.31 against 526.75, a difference of AED 10.44, or 2.02% of the metal. Three sessions at roughly AED 10.5 either side of a single AED 9.6 step taken on 8 August. A margin that arrives in one move and then holds through a metal rally is a pricing decision, not a data lag, and it is the sort of thing a buyer can plan around once it has a number on it.

§3The wedge, dated.

The metals themselves opened firmer against this paper's own previous mark. The tape carries gold $4,372.80, silver $64.79, platinum $1,764.00 and palladium $1,362.00, each read at 06:00 New York time and each higher than the mark of record this paper set 24 hours earlier: gold by $31.40 or 0.72%, silver by $0.80 or 1.25%, platinum by $27.00 or 1.55%, palladium by $22.00 or 1.64%. Those changes measure desk to desk across a day, not one trading session, and Kitco's own session line at the same moment read gold and silver lower on the day against its previous close. Two conventions, one price, and the tape states which it uses. Fine gold is $140.59 a gram and the gold-to-silver ratio narrows to 67.49 from 67.84.