If you have been investing for any time you may have heard of ways to invest in Gold and Silver without owning coins or the actual bars of gold and silver.

 Let’s delve into one way I invested today.  The name is iShares Gold Trust Micro. It is a part of Black Rock and specifically an  

It is a product of Black Rock. https://www.blackrock.com/corporate/about-usIt is an Exchange Traded Product, or ETP.   Note:…..I am not suggesting you purchase this or recommending it.  This writing and content is for education purposes only. 

The ticker or symbol for this product is IAUM.  https://www.ishares.com/us/literature/product-brief/iaum-product-brief.pdf

Let’s deep dive into this iShares Gold Trust Micro and learn more!

Have I lost you yet?  I hope not, this is some cool stuff for those like me who like to shake up the grey matter in our brains for fun!

The Prospectus spells out the details of the trust.  We are advised by experts and professionals in the financial investment field to always read these before investing.  Well, that is hard to do.  Who feels like doing that?  Very few but let’s try to break it down.

Taken from the wording of the this trust’s Prospectus…“the assets of the trust consist primarily of gold held by a custodian on behalf of the trust”. “The trust seeks to reflect generally the performance of the price of gold”.

Mmmm, who is the custodian?  Answer – the custodian is JPMorgan Chase London Branch and the Trustee is the Trust Bank of New York Mellon.

 The “trust is not a commodity pool (1)  and not an investment company” (see glossary on home page at Bottom)

Now that you are still reading I hope.  Let’s continue.  This trust has “baskets” of 50,000 shares in a basket.  This fund operates under a Custodian Agreement between the fund, the Custodian and the Trustee.  It lays out all the rules of how the trust and Custodian And Trustee operate and work together. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1759124/000143774921015152/ex_258138.htm. It is a complicated document to say the least.

 If you want to know the financials of the Trust as of June 30, 2024 here is the link https://www.ishares.com/us/library/stream-document?stream=reg&product=IUS-IAUM&shareClass=NA&documentId=1897033%7E2222972%7E2275843%7E2249874%7E2221970&iframeUrlOverride=%2Fus%2Fliterature%2Fsemi-annual-report%2Fiaum-form10q-20240630.pdf.

For an example of how the shares price mirror Gold on March 14, 2024 the share price was $21.60 and the London Bullion Market Association of LBMA Gold Price was $2160.80.

You may be wondering as I was how can I be sure they are tracking the real price of Gold?  It is a pretty great source.  It is tracked twice daily by during London Business Hours by the IBA (Ice Benchmark Administration).   Ice manages the Gold Price on behalf of LBMA; The London Bullion Market Association. (LBMA) is an international trade association that represents the global market for gold and silver bullion:and is set daily at 10:30 Greenwich Mean Time and 15:00 GMT which is currently 6:30 am Eastern Time in dollars, euros and sterling.

 LBMA Gold Price and LBMA Silver Price are the global benchmarks for prices of unallocated gold and silver delivered in London.

Ice took over administration of the London Interbank Offered Rate or LIBOR in 2014 after a scandal in which bank traders were found to have rigged the LIBOR to benefit their own trading positions.  The UK government asked the body that had been running the benchmark during the scandal years to step aside and introduced new regulations.  These require an oversight committee and IBA is a unit of the Intercontinental Exchange.

 The LBMA Gold Price took over and replaced the Gold Fixing Price that had ben in existence since Sept 1919.

To be continued … stay tuned for more…..