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Metals explained
Can you day trade precious metals?
Yes, you can day trade precious metals including gold, silver, platinum and more. To day trade these precious metals, you need to ensure that you aren’t keeping any positions open overnight – which avoids the risk of overnight gapping and funding charges impacting your bottom line.
CFD trading and spread betting are two popular tools for day trading precious metals. They enable you to speculate on metal prices without ever taking ownership of the markets themselves, and provide access to leverage to make your capital go further – although leverage will also increase your risk.
Learn more about CFD trading on precious metals and spread betting metals.
How do you trade metals?
There are a few different ways to trade metals. Most metals trading in the open market is executed via futures – derivatives that involve trading a metal on a set date in the future at a price set today.
To buy and sell metals futures, you’ll need an account with a futures broker. Or, you can trade on market prices using CFDs or spread betting – which enable you to go long or short on metals without ever taking ownership of the underlying asset.
Learn more about how to trade commodities.
What are the trading hours for metals?
You can trade most metals – including gold, silver and platinum – 23 hours a day from Sunday night to Friday night, with a break from 10pm to 11pm UTC. However, there will be times when precious metal markets are more volatile and liquid than others.
The precise times for each market will vary depending on whether your trading its spot, futures or options variant. You can see a full run down of the hours for each market on our commodity hours page.