Throughout history gold has often been used as money and, instead of quoting the gold price, all other commodities were measured in gold. After World War II a gold standard was established following the 1946 Bretton Woods conference, fixing the gold price at $35 per troy ounce.
The system held up until 1971 Nixon Shock, when the US stopped the direct convertibility of the United States dollar to gold. Since 1968 the usual benchmark for the price of gold is known as the London Gold Fixing, a twice-daily (telephone) meeting of representatives from five bullion-trading firms. Furthermore, there is active gold trading based on the intra-day spot price, derived from gold-trading markets around the world as they open and close throughout the day. The following table sets forth the gold price versus various assets and key statistics:
| Gold | USD
| USD | ||
| 1970 | 37.4 | 1.6 | 838.9 | 3.3 | 370.1 |
| 1975 | 140.3 | 4.2 | 852.4 | 6.4 | 533.2 |
| 1980 | 589.5 | 15.5 | 964.0 | 11.8 | 907.7 |
| 1985 | 327.0 | 5.8 | 1,546.7 | 13.0 | 1,823.1 |
| 1990 | 353.4 | 4.2 | 2,633.7 | 22.2 | 3,233.3 |
| 1995 | 369.6 | 5.1 | 5,117.1 | 29.8 | 4,974.0 |
| 2000 | 272.7 | 4.6 | 10,786.9 | 31.9 | 5,662.2 |
| 2005 | 513.0 | 8.8 | 10,717.5 | 45.1 | 8,170.4 |
| 2008 | 865.0 | 10.8 | 8,776.4 | 54.6 | 10,699.8 |
In March 2008, the gold price reached above $1000[ reaching an all-time nominal high of $1002.80 which, in real terms was still well below the $850 peak in 1980. It then fell, going as low as $709.50 in November, then resumed its upward trend, temporarily breaking the $1000 barrier again in late February 2009.
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