Ultima Markets Enters the Weekend Gold Race
Ultima Markets on Monday began quoting a gold CFD available for trading over the weekend, listing the symbol XAUUSD247 on its MetaTrader 5 platform. The launch makes it the fourth broker to bring a weekend gold product to market under that precise ticker string.
The contract is sized at one ounce per lot, with a hard ceiling of 100 lots. At the current gold price in the vicinity of $4,400 per ounce, that caps a single client's maximum weekend exposure at roughly 100 ounces, or approximately $440,000 in notional value. The schedule runs from 00:00 to 24:00 GMT+3 on both Saturday and Sunday, with a one-minute rollover pause on weekdays. Commission is set at zero for STP and ECN account holders, while leverage is tiered up to 1:100. Hedged positions are margined on the larger side only, and Copy Trading Pro accounts are explicitly excluded from access to the symbol.
One notable quirk in the product specification is that Ultima has filed XAUUSD247 under its crypto instruments category, despite the underlying exposure being physical gold. No explanation for this classification choice was provided in the release.
A Crowded Field of Weekend Gold Offerings
The format was pioneered by Vantage, which listed the first XAUUSD247 on July 6. That original offering featured a one-ounce contract set against Vantage's own 100-ounce standard gold product, tiered leverage up to 100x, and a mechanism that pushes accounts into close-only mode once exposure limits are reached.
VT Markets adopted the same ticker on August 5 and went further than its rivals in publishing cost data: a minimum weekend spread of 40 points, compared with 15 points on weekdays. That represents a 2.67x widening over the normal trading session.
STARTRADER followed on August 21, choosing to keep its conventional XAUUSD contract running in parallel rather than extending the hours of its existing product. Chief Executive Peter Karsten framed the decision by noting that market-moving events do not wait for Monday to arrive.
Two additional firms took a slightly different path. TradeQuo and QuoMarkets each launched a separate weekend symbol branded GOLD247, with QuoMarkets going live on September 5. Both products run on MetaTrader 5 and sit alongside an unchanged standard gold offering.
Transparency Gaps and Liquidity Questions
A recurring theme across the weekend gold product set is limited disclosure on where prices actually come from. GBE Prime, Scope Prime, and Match-Prime all quote gold across the weekend without identifying their reference venues, price-discovery methodology, or weekend liquidity sources. CMC Markets similarly withheld pricing and margin terms when it introduced its own weekend gold contract. Ultima's release published trading hours, contract size, leverage, and eligible account types but stopped short of naming a weekend spread or a price source.
The only listed venue with a comparable product is CME Group's one-ounce gold futures, which saw almost 15,000 contracts—roughly $60 million in notional value—traded during its first weekend of continuous trading in July. That volume remains modest relative to weekday activity.
Holding costs are another area where the weekend symbol offers no relief. A recent sample of 32 broker accounts by FinanceMagnates.com found that every one charged negative overnight financing on long gold positions, ranging from $57.55 to $95.58 per lot per night. In other words, while a trader can now close a position before Monday, the nightly financing charge continues to accrue over the weekend.
Market Context and Competitive Implications
The push into weekend gold access is driven by the instrument's dominance in broker revenue. Gold has accounted for as much as 90% of trading volume at certain CFD firms. Metals CFDs overall represented more than 60% of global broker volumes in the first half of 2025, with close to 80% of that slice attributable to gold alone.
The shared XAUUSD247 ticker also reduces switching costs for clients. A trader who learned the symbol, the one-ounce contract structure, and the weekend hours at one firm can walk to three others and find the same setup. That convenience benefits the customer while creating acquisition pressure on the four firms investing in client onboarding.
Ultima is no stranger to brand friction. A second brokerage began operating under the Ultima Markets name last year, prompting the original firm to announce it would pursue all necessary measures, including legal action, to protect its brand.
On the regulatory front, the release references the Financial Services Commission of Mauritius, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), without specifying which entity is offering the product or in which jurisdictions it is available. Ultima secured FCA approval for its trading name in July 2025 and has indicated it will begin onboarding UK-based clients within the year.
The company's mobile app and remaining trading platforms are expected to go live later this month.
