Gyroscopic Investing

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?

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?

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.

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.