1,004.21 in Shanghai, and five bank counters spread 16.60 yuan apart

§1The close, and a table that reconciles.

The Shanghai Gold Exchange's Au99.99 contract closed at 1,004.21 yuan a gram on Monday, up 20.65 yuan or 2.10% against a previous settlement of 983.56, which this desk back-solves from the exchange's own close and change. It opened at 990.00, ran to a high of 1,006.60 and a low of 985.00, and the weighted average came to 1,002.84 on 7,268.38 kilograms, a little over seven and a quarter tonnes in a single session. Turnover of 7.289 billion yuan divided by that volume returns 1,002.84 a gram exactly, so the table reconciles against itself, which is the first thing this desk now checks on a Chinese price board after the dating trap it printed on 23 August. Three gold contracts finished within 2.19 yuan of one another: Au99.99 at 1,004.21, Au99.95 at 1,004.00 on two kilograms of turnover, and Au100g at 1,006.19.

The round number is a return and not a first, and the Chinese press said so in its own headlines. The National Business Daily report, published 24 August at 14:13 Beijing time, is headed with the domestic gold price returning to 1,000 yuan, and the related items listed on that same page include three separate reports of the domestic price falling below 1,000 and one recording a risk warning the exchange issued when it did. This paper's 23 August edition named 1,000 yuan a gram as the number the Chinese press would lead with at the crossing, and the press has led with it. Neither the press nor this paper calls it a record. The exchange's own 42-stock gold concept board on the same session split 22 up, 19 down and one flat, and the biggest riser on it was a bicycle maker, Shenzhen Zhonghua A at 9.99%, while the largest miner on the list, Zijin, closed down 0.58%.

§2Five counters, one gram.

The counters that Chinese savers actually buy through did not agree with each other. At 10:15 Beijing time on Monday, five savings-gold products at four state banks quoted between 1,005.69 and 1,022.29 yuan a gram, a spread of 16.60 yuan, or 1.65% of the lowest, on this desk's arithmetic. Bank of China was dearest at 1,022.29. Agricultural Bank's Cunjintong read 1,018.00, Construction Bank 1,008.89, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 1,005.69. ICBC also quoted a second product, Ruyi savings gold, at 1,017.48, so one bank carried two prices for the same metal on the same morning, 11.79 yuan apart, a gap of 1.17%. All five quotes are one 10:15 snapshot and the exchange close came hours later, so a bank-to-exchange markup would cross two different hours and this desk does not calculate one. The bank-to-bank spread is the like-for-like reading.

§3This paper's own mark.

This paper's own mark of record moved the other way. Gold was re-read at press time on Tuesday and written back to the tape at $4,634.20 an ounce, Kitco's bid at 06:05 New York time, with TradingEconomics reading $4,634.46 the same minute. That gap of $0.26, or 0.0056%, is the closest two-page agreement this tape has recorded on the metal. The new mark sits $9.70, or 0.21%, below Monday's $4,643.90. Silver was written back at $67.88 against a second page at $67.969, a gap of 0.13%. Platinum and palladium were not written back: Kitco bid $1,842.00 against $1,857.40 and $1,306.00 against $1,327.00, gaps of 0.83% and 1.61%, so the held marks of $1,881.00 and $1,336.00 stand a sixth consecutive session, both still inside Kitco's own press-time day ranges of $1,836.00 to $1,900.00 and $1,298.00 to $1,390.00. Outside-source divergence, disclosed: the National Business Daily carried international spot at $4,636.06 at its own Monday filing hour, a different day and a different hour from this tape's mark, and the two are not compared here.