IAU 10-K Analysis: Why a 65% Gold Rally Delivered 4 Different Returns
iShares Gold Trust posted $24.3 billion in FY2025 'net income' with zero revenue, zero cash flow, and zero employees. Gold rose 65%. The trust's NAV doubled. But the 10-K filing reveals four different answers to the question every gold investor should ask: what did I actually earn? We decompose IAU's record year into four components — gold price appreciation, per-share value capture, flow amplification from 229.5 million new shares, and BlackRock's $124 million in guaranteed fee extraction.