State Street Global Advisors' battle with BlackRock to win the hearts and minds of the nation's gold bugs is getting play in Thursday's WSJ Fund Track column.

SSgA offers the $50.6 billion SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) while BlackRock counters with the $3.3 billion iShares Comex Gold Trust (IAU).

Last week, BlackRock decided to compete on price when it cut the fees on its fund to 25 basis points from 40 bps. SSgA still charges 40 bps for its ETF.

Before BlackRock's move, the $587 million ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares (SGOL) had been the cheapest gold ETF at 39 basis points. However, that fund does not offer the liquidity of its larger rivals. The SSgA fund trades an average of $1.9 billion of shares per day compared with just $35 million for the BlackRock ETF. 

Edited by: Sean Hanna, Editor in Chief


Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE