SPDR Gold Shares is a claim on numbered gold bars, and the way out is a sale

A share of SPDR Gold Shares, GLD, sponsored by World Gold Trust Services, is a fractional interest in numbered gold bars, not a share of a company and not a bar with your name on it. The sponsor is an affiliate of the World Gold Council, its January 2026 FAQ says. State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors markets the shares, which began trading on the NYSE Arca on Nov. 18, 2004.

Where the gold is held

The gold is allocated. The bars credited to the trust are identified one by one, by refiner, serial number, assay and weight, and the trust owns those specific bars. They are London Good Delivery bars, the standard large bars of that market, 350 to 430 fine troy ounces each. Fine ounces are the pure-gold weight.

HSBC Bank plc was already the custodian when JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., was added, effective Dec. 6, 2022. JPMorgan can hold gold in London, New York or Zurich. The FAQ says HSBC holds the trust's gold at its vault in London.

Each bank publishes its own list, and these two are a day apart. On Nov. 12, JPMorgan's list showed 77,945 bars, 31.1 million fine ounces, allocated in the name of The Bank of New York Mellon, the trustee, for the trust.

Of those, 76,122 bars were in London. The New York vault held 1,823 bars, 733,901 fine ounces, and the list showed no gold in Zurich.

HSBC's list, as of the close on Nov. 13, showed 5,944 bars, 2.41 million fine ounces. Those bars sit at HSBC's London vault, as the FAQ says.

Across the two lists, the gold came to 83,889 bars. All but the 1,823 in New York were in London.

The trust does not insure the gold. Each custodian keeps insurance on its own business, on terms the custodian chooses, and that coverage does not extend to the full amount in the vault. The trust is not a beneficiary of it and cannot set the coverage.

If bars go missing and the trust cannot recover, the loss comes out of the gold, and the shares are worth less. The annual report for the year ended Sept. 30, 2025 says a loss may fall on the gold with no one liable in damages, and that recovery may be limited even in a case of fraud.

How the share is priced

The shares are meant to reflect the price of gold bullion, less the trust's expenses. The trustee values the ounces at the LBMA Gold Price PM, London's afternoon gold benchmark, from an auction ICE Benchmark Administration runs at 3 p.m. London time.

On Nov. 12 the shares closed at $354.89, 25 cents, or 0.07%, above net asset value, the trustee's per-share value.

The share trades through the New York session, and the trustee sets that value once, from the London auction.

What the 0.40% covers

The only recurring fixed expense is the sponsor's fee, 0.40% of net asset value a year. In exchange, the sponsor pays the ordinary costs, including the trustee, the custodians, the marketing agent and the listing. The fee came to $363 million in the year ended Sept. 30, 2025.

Legal costs above $500,000 in a fiscal year, and other expenses the sponsor has not assumed, can still fall on the trust. The trustee sells gold to pay them.

The trust has no income. Each share started as a tenth of an ounce. At Sept. 30, 2025, the gold behind a share was 0.092 ounces. The sponsor's January 2026 FAQ says the gold behind each share keeps declining, because the trust sells gold to pay its expenses.

Who is buying gold

Central banks added a net 321 tonnes of gold to their reserves in the third quarter, up 42% from a year earlier, the World Gold Council, the industry group whose affiliate sponsors the trust, said on Nov. 3. Jewelry demand fell 17% to 313 tonnes, which the council put down to high prices. Gold averaged $4,262 an ounce in the quarter.

How a holder gets out

The trust creates and redeems shares only in baskets of 100,000. Only authorized participants, the firms that have signed an agreement with the sponsor and the trustee, can place those orders.

At the Nov. 12 close, a basket was worth $35.5 million.

The annual report states the limit this way:

"Shareholders who are not Authorized Participants will only be able to redeem their Shares through an Authorized Participant."

The trustee does not deal directly with the public. An investor who wants the metal has to arrange that with a broker, the sponsor's January 2026 FAQ says.

The shares pay no dividend. The practical way out is a sale on the exchange, where about $3.25 billion of shares changed hands on an average day over the 20 sessions through Nov. 12.