The gold trade has historically been a good hedge against a weak dollar, but not usually a great investment when the greenback is going up. On Monday, State Street Global Advisors and the World Gold Council launched an ETF to figure out a way around that market friction point.

The SPDR Long Dollar Gold Trust ETF gains when gold priced in U.S. dollars rises or when the value of the U.S. dollar increases. It takes a long position on physical gold in U.S. dollars and shorts a group of major global currencies that include the euro, Japanese yen, British pound sterling, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc.

"There's nothing other than gold bars backing the product, and you're going to get the benefits of owning gold and owning gold in a strong-dollar environment," Joe Cavatoni, the World Gold Council's managing director of ETFs, told CNBC's Squawk Box.

However, the new ETF will lose money when gold prices fall more than the value of the dollar rises.

