Buying Gold again this Diwali?

Every year during Diwali people throng jewellery shops to buy Gold. As per an old report, Indian households hold 11% of the world gold and that must have easily increased manifolds.

Gold is considered a divine metal, we even worship gold, temples gods and goddess are filled with gold. It’s a belief that buying Gold is akin to welcoming Goddess Lakshmi home. It signifies prosperity and wealth.  Now I can understand the genesis of this belief as in those days gold and silver were the only options available, that was precious and signified wealth. Also people collected gold for children’s weddings and the amount of gold displayed during such occasions determined their status.

Some things have certainly changed now, firstly, there are other options that are as precious and more importantly its value increases significantly over a period of time.

If the objective is to welcome prosperity and wealth, then why only gold, why not other investment options. For e.g Mutual Funds. Consider this, last 5 year returns of investment options.

goldchart

Annualised Returns. Returns as on 23rd October 2018

Mutual Fund seems like a complete option to me. It generates wealth in the long run, especially the equity mutual funds, it’s liquid i.e. it can be redeemed or sold at any point. It’s easy to manage, you don’t need lockers to store them and no worries of it being stolen. Moreover mutual funds are so convenient to track and transact as everything is online.

As far as the need to collect one gold piece at a time for children’s wedding is concerned, that also can be resolved by doing an SIP (systematic investment plan). Start one SIP just for your child’s wedding. When you give a purpose for each SIP, it becomes more meaningful. The purpose, in this case is gold jewellery for your child’s wedding, automatically instils a discipline to continue investing till you achieve your goal.

Some things have not changed though, that is display of gold in our weddings, in fact there’s an increased display of not just gold, but diamonds too.  So here again, Mutual Funds can help, it can help you buy more jewellery for your child’s weddings!

Just we have adopted so many new changes in our lives, maybe it’s time to consider a change in this ritual as well.

Buy a financial asset that can be passed down seamlessly to you next generations.

Gold is old, try out the new options of welcoming wealth and prosperity to your homes this Diwali.

Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous Diwali !