US dollar
This condition measures how strong the dollar is, because gold is priced in dollars. When the dollar weakens against other currencies, foreign buyers get more ounces for the same money. The dollar price of gold tends to rise. This page measures where the broad trade-weighted dollar sits today against its own long history.
- Share of the score
- 10%
- Share used today
- 11.1%
- Source
- Fed H.10, broad trade-weighted dollar index
- How often it updates
- once a week
- Date of the newest figure
- 2026-09-11
- Newest figure
- 118.0732 index level (broad dollar)
- How fresh it is
- The source is running late. We are still counting it. The newest figure is 9 days old, and we stop counting this part once it passes 14 days. An old figure left counting would quietly drag the score toward whatever was true last month.
- How strong the evidence is
- moderate. What holds for the dollar holds for nearly every currency
What we look at
We use the Federal Reserve broad dollar index (from its H.10 release). We look at its level rank and its 12-month change.
Why it matters if you're buying gold
Gold is priced in United States dollars everywhere on earth, including in shops that never handle one. A buyer in Tokyo or Paris pays that dollar price, converted into their own money. So when the dollar strengthens, the conversion costs them more. The same ounce becomes dearer across most of the planet and people buy less of it. When the dollar weakens, that same ounce gets cheaper abroad and demand picks up. Now the part most pages leave out. Gold moves against nearly every currency, not only the dollar (Pukthuanthong and Roll, 2011). That is the mark of a pricing effect. It is partly a statement about which money we happen to quote the price in, not about gold itself. It carries a small weight here for exactly that reason.
What this cannot tell you
Moderate. We publish the yardstick caveat: gold moves against nearly every currency, not just the dollar. So a weak dollar is not always the pure signal it looks like for a US-based buyer. This condition carries a 10% weight for that reason.
Today's reading in plain words
Today this condition reads 45/100, near the historical middle.
Notes: The pricing caveat (Pukthuanthong and Roll) is spelled out on the methodology page.
How the score is worked out
We rank today's broad dollar level against its own past, from 0 to 100. Then we flip it: a low or falling dollar gives a high score.
Which way it points. A weak or falling US dollar raises the score. A strong or rising dollar lowers it.
What the evidence says
- Capie, Mills and Wood (2005): long-run inverse link between gold and the US dollar. Gold partly hedges against a specific currency's weakness.
- Reboredo (2013): measures how tightly the dollar and gold move together, including on the wildest days. The paper confirms the direction.
- Pukthuanthong and Roll (2011): gold is negatively linked to essentially every major currency, not just the dollar. We disclose the dollar signal as largely a yardstick effect: gold priced in dollars moves when the yardstick itself moves.
If you are selling
If you sell in US dollars, the pricing effect cancels out on your side too. The caveat applies both ways. If you sell in another currency, read this condition through your own currency's cross with the dollar, not the dollar index alone.
Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (US), H.10. See the methodology page for the full formula, and the provenance page for where each number comes from and how fresh it is.