Investors Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on iShares Gold Trust (NYSEARCA:IAU)

iShares Gold Trust (NYSEARCA:IAU) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Monday. Investors purchased 10,933 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 41% compared to the average daily volume of 7,737 call options.

iShares Gold Trust Trading Down 0.6%

Shares of iShares Gold Trust stock traded down $0.50 during trading on Monday, hitting $83.32. 2,174,525 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 10,054,554. iShares Gold Trust has a 52-week low of $64.41 and a 52-week high of $104.40. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $79.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $85.29. The firm has a market cap of $68.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 5.53 and a beta of 0.18.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On iShares Gold Trust

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. LPL Financial LLC grew its holdings in iShares Gold Trust by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 13,742,286 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $1,115,461,000 after purchasing an additional 203,528 shares during the last quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN boosted its position in iShares Gold Trust by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 13,136,955 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $1,066,327,000 after buying an additional 260,541 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its position in iShares Gold Trust by 1.3% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 8,732,671 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $659,404,000 after buying an additional 109,246 shares during the last quarter. Citigroup Inc. increased its holdings in iShares Gold Trust by 35.7% in the 4th quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 7,201,313 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $584,531,000 after buying an additional 1,893,594 shares during the period. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in iShares Gold Trust by 2.3% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 6,616,480 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $412,563,000 after buying an additional 148,881 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 59.67% of the company’s stock.

About iShares Gold Trust

iShares Gold Trust (the Trust) is to own gold transferred to the Trust in exchange for shares issued by the Trust (Shares). Each Share represents a fractional undivided beneficial interest in the net assets of the Trust. The assets of the Trust consist of gold held by the Trust’s custodian on behalf of the Trust. The sponsor of the Trust is iShares Delaware Trust Sponsor LLC (the Sponsor), which is an indirect subsidiary of BlackRock, Inc The trustee of the Trust is The Bank of New York Mellon (the Trustee) and the custodian of the Trust is JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A., London branch (the Custodian).