Gold spot vs GLD price discrepancy

[flagator]

Gold spot was up today by about 2.10 %, whereas GLD was up only 1.29% for the day. Why such a large discrepancy between the two? Isnt GLD supposed to track gold spot price? I understand that there maybe a tracking error but are we talking about 1 % per day worth of error, or is there another explanation for this significant difference in closing prices?

[Pet Hog]

According to the charts on kitco, the gold spot price rose about 1.3% from 4 pm on June 17 ($1187) to 4 pm on June 18 ($1202).  That's when the NYSE closes and that's when you should be comparing the price of any gold-tracking ETF or CEF.  There was an increase of about 2.4% if you look at the London closing price (from $1175 to $1203), which is about 11 am NY time.  Which spot price are you looking at?

[mathjak107]

a side from having a spread in bid and ask there are futures contracts involved with these etf's. they are partially priced based not on todays price but the outlook in the future.

[flagator]

Thank you for the clarification. I was looking at the gold closing quoted on the marketwatch website yesterday. They were quoting it being up over 2 % for the day (end of trading at 4 pm, yesterday) yet GLD was only up 1 .29 % for the day.