The desire to produce a stock exchange-traded form of gold is increasing as the metal's price rebounds from the selling that took place in bullion after the successful, United States-led invasion of Iraq. Gold on Friday, at $342 an ounce in the spot market, is near its highest point since March 17.

Analysts including Andy Smith at Mitsui Precious Metals in London say central bank selling of the metal must ease, and the price of bullion likely rise, after the Bank of Portugal signaled its gold sales were completed in April and March. "Look at the price since the Portugal announcement," Smith told me Friday.

The price of gold since Portugal said on April 24 that it had wrapped up its sales under the 1999 Washington Agreement, a handshake-pact among 15 central banks to set limits on each year's sales of the metal from sovereign vaults, is up about $15.

The accelerated sale of gold by Portugal leaves only Switzerland to sell its bullion, in scheduled amounts of about 6 tons a week, between now and September, which is the end of the pact's fiscal year.

Smith points out the exhaustion of central bank selling, a practice that includes the lending of gold that depresses its price, has precedent for steady gains in the metal. When the Bank of England concluded its scheduled sales of gold in March 2002, the price of bullion put in its last month with a price average below $300.

The new gold instruments coming to market could benefit investors who believe gold's gains will continue steadily, as some observers, including the usually skeptical Smith at Mitsui, are starting to indicate.

One of them, the Central Gold Trust, just went on file in Canada. The closed-end trust would allow investors to buy a securities-equivalent of gold at a discount or premium, on the Toronto Stock Exchange. As of today, only one other closed-end fund dealing in bullion trades in North America. Central Fund of Canada, on the American (CEF) and Toronto Stock Exchanges, is a repository for gold and silver and trades at an approximately 20 percent premium to bullion's price.

"Gold-Trust is an investment holding entity created to invest substantially all of its assets in gold bullion, with the primary investment objective of achieving long-term appreciation in the value of its gold holdings," paperwork filed with Canada security officials says. "The objective of Gold-Trust is to provide a secure, convenient, low-cost and low-risk investment alternative for investors interested in holding gold bullion, which is physically stored in bank treasury vaults located in Canada."

The adviser on the proposed trust is Eric Sprott's Sprott Asset Management, a Toronto company that is an aggressive investor in gold companies and actual gold bars. John Embry, the vaunted asset manager from Canada whose pro-gold beliefs are well known, recently left Royal Bank of Canada to join Sprott Asset Management.

Another product, a gold proxy in Australia, hit the market this spring. Gold Bullion Ltd.'s Australia-traded security (GOLD) is the first exchange-traded fund for a commodity. Unlike a closed-end trust, which can trade above or below the net asset value of the trust's holdings, an exchange-traded fund trades with a direct price link to gold's daily price movements.

The Australia fund has little reach to North American investors. But it's backed by the World Gold Council, a trade group that has pledged to boost gold's investment demand by creating similar vehicles, perhaps on the New York Stock Exchange as soon as the summer. See:Gold down under.

The buzz at the Las Vegas Precious Metals Conference earlier this week was about a new exchange-traded fund for gold. The gold council declined to attend the event, some say because it is in registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a new, NYSE-traded product. The fund, if it reaches the NYSE or another U.S. stock exchange, could become the QQQ of gold -- a reference to the highly successful exchange-traded fund that represents the Nasdaq 100 Index and trades as a security on the American Stock Exchange.

A U.S.-traded gold proxy likely would be managed by a large Wall Street firm such as State Street Advisors, which is one of the largest index managers in the world. Some sources say Bear Stearns may also be in the running for the new fund's management, a tricky process that involves minute-by-minute arbitrage of the gold price as well as end-of-day storage of gold in a vault.

In the meantime, individual investors looking for gold-linked investments have the usual choices open to them: gold coins and gold bars, both available online and via national mints and coin shops. Nearly all the choices come with the baggage of high commissions, storage and insurance fees.

Other choices include electronic substitutes for gold such as GoldMoney.com, which uses gold grams as part of a payment transaction service. GoldMoney.com is part of a consortium that is attempting to launch its own exchange-traded fund in Canada, managed by an index asset firm.