gold exchange-traded fund

State Street will be marketing agent for gold ETF

Pending regulatory approval, streetTRACKS Gold Trust is slated to trade on the New York Stock Exchange, while the BGI offering would trade on the American Stock Exchange.

Both ETFs will be structured as grantor investment trusts, not as registered investment companies, and the Bank of New York would be the trustee for both.

The ETFs will pay their fees by selling off small amounts of gold bullion that has been traded for ETF shares. In other words, the fractional amount of physical gold represented by each share will decrease over the life of the trust. See full story.

If they are approved, the ETFs will allow ordinary U.S. investors to invest directly in gold bullion.

In 2003 the first gold ETF, Gold Bullion Securities, began trading on the Australian Stock Exchange. It also now trades on the London Stock Exchange.