How is the spread calculated?
Absolute spread = sell − buy. Percentage spread = (sell − buy) / sell × 100. Multiplying by the quantity gives the total quote difference. A sell quote below the buy quote is flagged as inconsistent.
Read the quote from the dealer’s side
The bid is what a dealer pays when you sell; the ask is what you pay when buying. Enter a matched bid and ask for the same item, quantity, currency and observation time. Your historical purchase price is not the dealer’s current ask. A coin bid and a bar ask do not form a meaningful spread simply because both products contain gold.
The denominator changes the percentage
This calculator divides the difference by the ask. If the ask is 100 and the bid is 98, the absolute spread is 2 and the percentage is 2%. A service dividing the same difference by the bid reports about 2.0408%. Both describe the same quoted prices using different denominators. Compare the actual bid and ask as well as the percentage. These amounts are illustrative, not market quotes.
A ten-unit transaction
Buying ten units at 100 costs 1,000. Immediately reselling at the unchanged bid of 98 produces 980, a difference of 20 before fees. With a fixed purchase fee of 5 and a resale fee of 5, the cash outlay is 1,005 and net proceeds are 975. The difference becomes 30. This spread calculator excludes those fees; use break-even or dealer comparison to include them.
A narrower spread is not always the better offer
Suppose dealer A asks 100 and bids 98, while dealer B asks 103 and bids 102. A has a 2% spread; B’s is about 0.97%. A still has the lower purchase price, while B pays more for the same item on resale. Fees are assumed to be zero in this example. Choose the transaction direction before ranking offers by one percentage.
Four questions before accepting
Are both prices valid at the same time? Does the bid apply to your exact product and fineness? Do quantities change the price or fee? What are the settlement, delivery and assay costs, if any? Packaging, condition and partial-sale terms can change an actual offer. Confirm quote validity before treating a displayed price as executable.
What a spread cannot establish
This calculation does not forecast prices, assess dealer reliability or decide when to sell. If the ask is below the bid, check the input direction, currency and product rather than treating it as an ordinary spread. Use this page to measure a matched quote difference and the related tools to examine the complete transaction cost.
Unit and pricing references: LBMA · Conversion Table · LBMA · The Price. Site calculation method