Gyroscopic Investing

Why is it that at any specific time the spot price of gold will differ depending on the source? I can simultaneously be watching the online dealers and one of the cable business news shows and get a different spot price.

The online dealers are usually fairly close to each other, but at today's pricing are still sometimes $2-3/ounce apart. Cable financial news is often $10 off. Is the bid/ask spread on spot pricing playing a role?

This has nothing to do with my buying or selling. Just curious.

I don't think there is one official source for the spot price for everyone to tap into and even if there was, it would vary depending on how often whatever you are looking at gets updated.

The only price I ever pay much attention to is what my broker is willing to pay for my coins.

I posted a similar question once a upon a time. I don’t remember the answer, but maybe it was timing, i.e. delays.
Funny, because i just came here to report “Google sheets doesn’t realize it yet, but gold hit $1432 an ounce.”

London spot is generally considered to be "the official" price of gold...but there is a global market for gold so market data and timeliness of the data source varies greatly.