Tamer Elgamil ·
Your phone says gold fell overnight and the jeweller quotes a higher 21-karat gram. Both are true. Here is how to split any Egyptian move into the metal's half and the pound's.
Your phone says gold fell overnight. The jeweller quotes you a 21-karat gram that is higher than yesterday's. Nobody is lying to you, and neither figure is a typo.
The Egyptian gram carries two moving parts, and a single number in pounds cannot tell you which one moved. This article is about pulling them apart, because our own daily record is built to do exactly that.
The Egyptian price starts from one calculation. Take the international gold price in US dollars per ounce. Multiply by the dollar-to-pound exchange rate. Divide by 31.1035.
That last number is the gram weight of a troy ounce, which is the unit the international market actually prices in. It is not the everyday ounce of about 28.35 grams. The London Bullion Market Association, which sits behind the international benchmark, states both points directly: the troy ounce is 31.1035 grams, and precious metals are quoted by default in US dollars per troy ounce.
So two inputs feed every Egyptian gram: what gold did in dollars, and what the dollar did against the pound. They are independent of each other, and they can pull in opposite directions on the same morning.
Here is the move that makes the two halves visible.
Every session, this site records the 24-karat gram and the dollar-to-pound rate side by side. Divide that day's 24-karat gram by that day's dollar rate, and you get an index that only moves when the metal moves. The currency has been divided out of it.
The dollar rate on its own is the other half. Track that index and that rate across the same window, and you have separated a single confusing number into two numbers that each mean one thing.
This is not an approximation. Compound the percentage change in the metal index with the percentage change in the exchange rate, and the result reproduces the change you actually saw in pounds.
Our price history page publishes that reconciliation for the recorded window. It states the metal's move, the currency's move, and roughly what share of the total came from each side. You do not have to estimate it from a headline.
The pound does not follow gold. It follows Egypt.
Since March 2024 the Central Bank of Egypt has run a market-driven exchange rate rather than a fixed one, a shift made alongside the IMF programme of that year. Interest rates have moved on a domestic timetable ever since. The central bank cut its overnight deposit rate to 19% on 12 February 2026, and it tied that decision to headline inflation falling to about 10.1% in the January reading.
None of those events had anything to do with what gold was doing in London. That is the whole point. A morning when the pound moves on domestic news can push the Egyptian gram in a direction the international price never suggested.
An international headline is reporting the dollar half. A shop's quote carries the pound half as well. Reading one and expecting it to explain the other is where the confusion starts.
Every local gold market works this way. The World Gold Council publishes its price series in the major trading, producing and consuming currencies for the same reason: one dollar benchmark, repriced by every country through its own currency.
If you want to size a purchase around one component rather than guess at both, our calculator will do the arithmetic at the current inputs.
It explains the metal-versus-currency half of a move and nothing else.
It says nothing about workmanship, about a shop's own margin, or about the gap between the buying and selling price. Those sit on top of the reference gram and follow completely different rules. They are covered on their own pages rather than folded in here.
The Egyptian price depends on two inputs, not one: gold in US dollars, and the dollar against the pound. If the pound weakened enough on the same day, that alone can lift the pound price of a gram while the dollar price of gold is falling.
It is the unit the international gold market prices in, and it weighs 31.1035 grams, more than the everyday ounce of about 28.35 grams. Every Egyptian gram calculation divides by that figure, so using the wrong ounce weight throws the whole conversion off.
Yes. It responds to Egypt's own policy and money flows. The Central Bank of Egypt has run a market-driven exchange rate since March 2024, and on 12 February 2026 it cut its overnight deposit rate to 19%, citing headline inflation of about 10.1% in January. Those are domestic decisions with no connection to the international gold market.
Our price history page publishes it for the recorded window. It states the metal's own move, the currency's move, and roughly what share of the total move came from each side.