TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Gold's found its way back to record territory and it may not have gotten there quite so soon if it weren't so easy to invest in the precious metal through exchange-traded funds. "The ETFs for precious metals have been a roaring success," said Ned Schmidt, editor of the Value View Gold Report. "More than $50 billion resides in gold and silver ETFs" worldwide. The world's first gold exchange-traded fund, Gold Bullion Securities, was launched by ETF Securities in Australia (AU:GOLD 113.37, -1.24, -1.08%) in March of 2003 and it's posted some lofty gains since. That ETF's share price has more than doubled from its first day of trading to around 114.61 Australian dollars ($103.47) per share Thursday, according to data from FactSet Research. The very first U.S. ETF for gold was the StreetTracks Gold Trust launched in Nov. 2004. Now known as the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD 103.00, -0.64, -0.62%) , it's the biggest ETF backed by gold and has climbed from a value of over $44 per share on its first day of trading to an all-time high above $103 Thursday in New York. It holds assets of more than $37 billion. In the case of gold, "the arrival and growth of the ETF vehicle has contributed several new dimensions to the market," said Jon Nadler, a senior analyst at Kitco Metals. "The ETFs have added about $100-$150 that would not have been there in the current value of gold, had they not landed on the scene. That's significant given that gold futures prices reached a fresh record intraday level of more than $1,060 on Thursday in New York. In March of 2003 when the first gold ETF surfaced, prices were trading below $350. ETFs have really been a "major net positive as [they've] allowed many investors who may have otherwise not taken exposure to gold an easy and direct way to share in its price movement," said Peter Grandich, a metals writer at Agoracom.com. Convincing move Of course, there's much more going on in the gold market than meets the eye. "When we launched the gold ETF in Australia in March 2003, the press was saying at the time [that] with all the gold ETFs coming to the market, it must be the top of the market," said Nik Bienkowski, chief operating officer at ETF Securities, in an interview Tuesday. "They were advising people not to get in the top of the market," he said. "Well, [it's] six, seven years later and gold is $1,020 and people were talking about $1,400, $1,500 an ounce, perhaps later on this year." Fundamentally, there a number of things going on with gold and with commodities in general, he said. They're becoming harder to find, production is moving to different countries, there are different types of exploration methods, and there's a lack of "talent" -- a lack of qualified people to work in commodities markets such as geologists and engineers, he said. "All of these are supportive of having a tight supply," Bienkowski said. Investment demand has helped tighten that supply even further. The economic and financial environment has also been positive for gold and "when there are risks in the market, people turn to gold," said Bienkowski.

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