iShares Gold Trust?

Any thoughts about iShares gold trust (IAU) as a method for investing in gold? It is low cost but does not seem to be a bad fund to try and is fee-free with some brokerages. No dividends of course but it seems likely to at least hold its value with some chance of gain?

 

Thanks for that JR, you do hear such divided opinion about gold. But this fund looks like a sensible place to put small uninvested balances and bring in some diversity. I think I will give it a go. If I change my mind I can ditch it again in a month with no penalties.

 

Dammit!

I thought all iShares were commission free at Fidelity. But I made a small purchase of IAU and they charged me full commission! How did I get that wrong?

So instead of investing my small cash amount, I basically flushed it down the toilet.

 

What I know about iShares is positive. As to gold, in general, I think it is a good idea to have a portion of one's investments in said. I've always kept some in gold and silver, though not nearly as high of percentage as in time past.

 

Penny, did you see these two pages on the iShares commission free shares?

https://www.fidelity.com/etfs/ishares
https://www.fidelity.com/etfs/ishares-view-all

What am I missing here? I don't see IAU listed anywhere as being commission free?

 

There's probably very little to choose between the two in terms of performance and expense ratio, but I've always tended to argue for the SPDR Gold Trust Shares (GLD). That's simply because it's far more liquid and used more generally I think. I don't though think there's a whole lot of difference based on what you want to do.

 

Getting exposure to precious metals with exchange traded index funds is perfectly valid to me. Each method of owning metals has its pros and cons, and I feel the mix with iShares is worthy of consideration. Although you might want to check out GLD, the S&P version because I think the fees might be lower.

The main benefit of going that way is that your gold can't be physically stolen, doesn't have to be stored, and can liquidated easily. The main con is lack of physical ownership and you can't hide the wealth from authorities!