GLD vs IAUM

GLDBSPDR Gold Shares

IAUMAiShares Gold Trust Micro

In short

GLD Gold in a brokerage account, running since 2004: a trust that holds physical bullion and trades like a stock. It's the heavyweight of the gold shelf, and the fee is the price of that depth.

IAUM Bullion in a vault, at 0.09% a year, roughly half the typical fee among physical gold funds. This is iShares' small-fee take on owning metal, priced off the LBMA Gold Price benchmark.

Stated mandate

GLD GLD seeks to have its shares track the price of gold bullion after the Trust’s operating expenses.

IAUM The Trust seeks to reflect the performance of gold, before its expenses and liabilities, by holding physical gold.

Why people hold it

• GLD Does the one job it advertises: shares track the price of gold bullion after the trust's expenses, and the tracking is among the tightest in the gold group.
• Huge and very actively traded, which is why spreads tend to be thin and large orders usually find the other side quickly.
• Plain structure: a grantor trust holding physical gold. No futures, no roll schedule, no leverage between you and the metal.
• Trading since 2004, one of the longest-running gold vehicles on the US market and through several gold cycles.

• IAUM Fee is 0.09% a year against a 0.17% median for physical gold peers, a hair under GLDM (0.10%) and well under SGOL (0.17%) and AAAU (0.18%).
• Plain plumbing: a grantor trust that holds physical gold and seeks to reflect gold's performance, before expenses and liabilities, against the LBMA Gold Price.ishares.com
• A multi-billion-dollar fund that trades actively, and it tracks its gold benchmark about as closely as anything in the physical gold group.

Worth knowing

• GLD 0.40% a year is the toll for that liquidity: more than double the typical physical-gold ETF fee, and above its own cheaper sibling GLDM at 0.10%.
• No dividends or interest. Bullion pays nothing, so the gold price minus the trust's expenses is the entire story.
• Gold moves in big swings, with no earnings or yield underneath to soften them.

• IAUM No income here. The trust has made no distributions, so return is gold's price move minus the fee, nothing else.
• Gold swings hard on sentiment and rates, and there is no yield to cushion a drawdown.
• Launched in 2021, it is younger than the bullion trusts that anchor this category and not the deepest-traded name among them.

Full GLD profile⁠

Full IAUM profile⁠