GLDM vs IAUM

GLDMASPDR Gold MiniShares Trust

IAUMAiShares Gold Trust Micro

In short

GLDM The house that built the original gold ETF later built a cheaper one. GLDM holds physical gold bullion, charges 0.10% a year (a quarter of its older sibling's fee), and has grown into a multi-billion-dollar fund.

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

GLDM GLDM seeks to reflect the performance of gold bullion, less the fund's expenses.

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

Why people hold it

• GLDM Ten basis points a year for bullion exposure, below the typical fee among physical gold funds and a quarter of the 0.40% on GLD, the sponsor's original gold trust.
• Simple plumbing: a grantor trust that holds metal and seeks to reflect gold bullion less expenses. No futures roll, no swap counterparty, no miner-stock beta in the way.
• One of the strongest implementations in its peer group, and among the more actively traded gold funds, which tends to keep the spread you pay getting in and out modest.
• Launched in 2018 as the low-fee sibling to the 2004 original, it is now a large, established trust rather than a niche launch hoping to find an audience.

• 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

• GLDM Gold pays nothing. No dividends, no interest, and the trust covers its expenses out of the metal, so gold per share drifts down over time.
• One metal, one price. This is undiversified exposure to bullion, and gold can swing hard in both directions.
• A couple of rivals list lower headline fees (IAUM at 0.09%, FGDL at 0.00%) for similar physical gold exposure.

• 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 GLDM profile⁠

Full IAUM profile⁠