The cost of trading an ETF goes beyond expense ratios, and in the case of hedge funds and institutions, that's especially true.

In a blog last week, I explored the positions two high-profile hedge fund managers, John Paulson and George Soros, are taking in the SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEArca: GLD), the huge gold ETF.

In that piece, I compared the round-trip cost over the course of a year of buying, holding and selling GLD with the cost of the iShares Gold Trust (NYSEArca: IAU). I stand by this analysis as it relates to retail investors.

After all, the average spreads and expense ratio figures I quoted are indisputable. Those are the round-trip costs a retail investor is likely to have to pay in buying and selling the funds.

Different Investors, Different Costs

The problem is I used two institutional investors to make my case. As I attempted to touch on, liquidity means different things to different investors. For example, when I stated that the two funds are similarly liquid, that only holds true for retail investors. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE