Just as gold is showing its strongest performance in a year, exchange-traded fund provider ETF Securities is set to launch its first bullion-backed gold fund. The ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares, backed by one-tenth of an ounce of Swiss-stored physical bullion per share, is set to begin trading on Wednesday through the NYSEArca exchange under the ticker SGOL.

ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares will go head-to-head in competition with existing bullion-backed ETFs such as SPDR Gold Trust (NYSEArca: GLD) and iShares COMEX Gold Trust (NYSEArca: IAU), both of which have hit 52-week highs this week on a surging gold price.

Gold ETF holdings have risen 42 percent, or 16 million ounces year-to-date. Bullion-backed ETFs hold 54.23 million ounces of gold, more than many central banks and around the levels of last year’s total production amount. (See Wall Street Journal story here.)

The ETFS Physical Swiss Gold Shares is ETF Securities’ second commodity-based fund to launch in the past three months. In July, the provider launched ETFS Silver Trust (NYSEArca: SIVR), which has risen 18% since then. The new ETF is the firm’s third to date, following London Stock Exchange Traded Gold Bullion Securities (LSE: GBS.L) and ETFS Physical Gold (LSE: PHAU.L).

“We think the U.S. equity ETF market is very competitive and arguably very saturated. But we feel that the U.S. commodities marketplace is under-served,” said William Rhind, head of London-based ETF Securities’ U.S. marketing unit in a recent interview with IndexUniverse.com. (See story here.)

In Asia trading Wednesday, gold was selling for around $1,002 an-ounce in Singapore. However, technical traders were advising hedge funds to use the high gold price as an opportunity to sell the commodity short, for a quick dip to around $940 an ounce. (See story here.)

Gold ETFs were volatile in Tuesday trading, rising initially and falling back to end the day around 1.1 percent lower.