GLDM vs SGOL

GLDMASPDR Gold MiniShares Trust

SGOLBabrdn Physical Gold Shares ETF

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.

SGOL A 2009-vintage trust that owns actual gold bars and does exactly one job: track bullion's price after a 0.17% fee. Middle of the pack on cost, front of the pack on doing what the prospectus says.

Stated mandate

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

SGOL The Trust seeks to track the price of physical gold bullion, after deducting its expenses.

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.

• SGOL Plain plumbing: a grantor trust holding physical bullion, with one job written into its own documents, to track the price of gold after deducting expenses.
• Tracks the metal about as closely as the wrapper allows, one of the cleanest mandate implementations among physical gold funds.
• Trading since 2009, through several full gold cycles, and now a multi-billion-dollar fund that changes hands actively.

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.

• SGOL Cost sits at the category median: 0.17% a year, while IAUM (0.09%) and GLDM (0.10%) charge less to hold the same metal.
• Bullion throws off no income. This is a price-of-gold holding, not a cash-flow one, and the fee comes out of trust assets.
• One metal, no diversification. The shares go where gold goes, including the long flat stretches and sharp drawdowns.

Full GLDM profile⁠

Full SGOL profile⁠