Somewhere in the world, a gold bear is sleeping under a rock. Good luck finding him.

Commodities are in the middle of a raging bull market, and nowhere in the great boom of the new century has the impact been more profound than in gold, the historical safe haven and inflation hedge. While portfolio managers always favored the metal to balance investments and offset risk, individual investors are plowing fresh capital into E.T.F.'s as they look for safety, and a little momentum.

Historically high levels of investment demand pushed prices to record highs last year, levels that were eclipsed Friday when gold jumped to $1,002.50 an ounce in New York. This is great news for the savvy investors steering clear of stocks and bonds and filling their portfolios with gold-backed instruments, from structured notes and futures to bullion and exchange-traded funds.

Exchange-traded funds especially are helping to rewrite the investor playbook. They are liquid, accessible and trade like equities. Costs are all in the price, unlike the insurance, storage and premiums at purchase associated with participation in the bullion and coin markets. Shares are backed by bullion, but there is no physical delivery.

"E.T.F.'s give ready access to the gold market to a whole category of investor who wasn't involved in buying bullion, like asset managers and individual investors," says James Steel, chief commodity analyst at HSBC.

Based on 13S filings, more than 70 percent of domestic holdings are in the hands of individual investors, dominated by the high net-worth crowd that's looking at long-term strategic allocation, according to George Milling-Stanley, manager of gold market analysis at the World Gold Council.

In November 2004, the W.G.C. created StreetTracks gold shares, the E.T.F. that trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GLD and is backed by $20 billion in metal.

The American Stock Exchange trades iShares in gold and silver. It is said to hold about $2 billion in gold. In Europe, precious metals, base metals, energy, and agricultural commodities are available as exchange-traded commodities, or E.T.C.'s, through E.T.F. Securities Ltd.

Pension funds and general investment funds are moving into commodities and out of equities. So are the asset management arms of banks and brokerage houses, according to Jeffrey Christian, managing director of CPM Group. Most of the liquidity is in precious metals, and gold represents the lion's share.

"Gold is more than naked price appreciation," Steel observes. "You may want to be diversified. With the way the equity markets have performed, with a 5 percent gold position you'll have a very nice cushion."

In 2007, investor demand for gold was 43.7 million ounces, up 11.7 percent from 2006, according to CPM Group's annual gold review, the seventh consecutive year in which investors collectively bought more than 20 million ounces, and far exceeding levels in previous bull markets. This year, Christian forecasts investment demand at 38.1 million ounces, but this number could slip or climb to 45 million, depending on investor attitudes.

"It is investor attitudes toward events that matter more than the events themselves," he observes.

Since 2001, investors have bought an estimated 279.2 million ounces on a net basis worldwide—29.3 million ounces were scooped up by E.T.F.'s as those easy-to-trade securities became more popular and opened gold buying to a wider range of investors.

"The simplicity element is very important for the gold market," Steel notes. "You couldn't buy bullion below the bullion bank level. You'd need a $1 million to enter. E.T.F.'s are deeply liquid. What you see is what you get. Many of the participants today weren't involved in the bullion market at all. By and large, their entrance into E.T.F.'s has been new."

While past commodities booms have busted spectacularly, Steel says he believes the strength being show now will have staying power—primarily because of growing demand in emerging markets. "By nature, these countries are commodity-intensive," he said. "Given the emerging world will advance at an above-par pace for years to come, interest will remain strong."