State Street Gold Fund First ETF Victory Over Barclays in Years

Proving that first-mover advantage and a memorable ticker symbol are key when it comes to launching a mutual fund, State Street Global Advisors' streetTracks Gold (GLD) Shares exchange-traded fund has attracted almost 17 times the amount of assets than Barclays Global Advisors' iShares Comex Gold (IAU), TheStreet.com reports.

The Gold Shares fund, which launched in November 2004, has $3.15 billion in assets and trades an average of two million shares a day, whereas the Comex Gold fund has $186 million and trades an average of 83,000 shares a day.