Gold Bugs Flock to streetTracks

Last month's interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve appears to have sparked concerns about inflation among the gold bugs.

Funds that invest in gold, a traditional hedge against rising consumer prices and general financial market turmoil, took in roughly $1.2 billion in September.

But the overwhelming bulk of the cash went to a single exchange-traded fund, the streetTracks Gold Shares(GLD) ETF. The fund, which holds almost 600 tons of gold bullion, took in an additional $1.017 billion during last month alone, according to new data from the Boston-based Financial Research Corp.

During a month in which credit woes weighed heavily on market sentiment and the U.S. central bank cut its fed funds target by 50 basis points, gold prices, a traditional bellwether of inflation, jumped more than 10% to $743 an ounce.

Although the market's gyrations prompted gold-hungry investors to snap up streetTracks Gold Shares, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the sector.

Collectively, all other U.S. specialty precious metals mutual funds and ETFs took in a paltry $49 million in net new funds for the same month, according to the FRC statistics. Twelve funds added a total of $222 million, while 12 others saw an outflow totaling $173 million.

Sonya Morris, editor of the Morningstar ETF Investor newsletter, says the flood of cash into streetTracks' product was likely caused by institutional investors.

Historically, mutual funds have attracted more interest from retail investors, whereas institutional investors such as pension funds and hedge funds have typically favored ETFs, although she says that is changing somewhat.