Why women should reconsider their choice of physical gold as investment asset?

Indian women have always been known for purchasing gold jewellery, it is even viewed as an investment by many. The practice of investing in gold is even correct as the yellow metal always emerges as the saviour for investors amid market volatility. However, there are ample of reasons for women to reconsider their stance on investing in physical gold. Investment in physical gold comes with challenges like storage cost issues, impurities, etc.

There are also additional making charges that are added while purchasing gold jewellery that are lost while returning the jewellery for a new one. Take a look at all the reasons why women should stop investing in physical gold and look for better ways to invest in the yellow metal. Following are the reasons, why women shouldn't invest in gold jewellery.

Physical gold requires storage and safety

Buying gold jewellery or physical gold not only requires money, but the bought item needs to be kept safely, either in bank or in locker to avert the risk of theft and robbery. Apart from the safety issue, purchasing gold in the form of jewellery requires the buyer to pay extra making charges which are non-returnable.

Impurities

There is another problem of the purity of the purchased yellow metal. If your purchased jewellery has no BIS Hallmark tag, it is difficult to find out whether the gold used was pure in nature or not. That's why the gold jewellery won't yield desired returns if you will sell it back to jeweller after some time.

Lack of interest earned

If the amount of money spent on buying gold, would have been deposited in a bank or invested somewhere else, it would have yielded same amount of interest. But same is not the case with physical jewellery. The only benefit it brings is in the case of rising price of gold.

Liquidity

When it comes to gold jewellery, there are sentiments attached to gold. It never remains just a tool of investment and becomes an emotional asset for the person or the family. Added emotional value in a jewellery makes it difficult to exchange when people are in need of money.

Apart from the following drawbacks buying physical gold, better alternatives of investing in the precious metal will definitely convince you to leave the conventional way of investing in gold and trying some new ways.

Gold ETFs

Buying Gold Exchange Traded Funds(ETFs) enables investors in buying the metal at real time price without any hassle. Gold ETFs are the mututal funds that keep a track of the domestic price of physical gold. The invested money is used by these mutual fund companies to buy gold bullion. Gold ETFs are listed on the stock exchange and enables investors to buy and sell Gold ETF units on the same day.

Digital Gold

Customers can also explore the option of buying ‘digital gold’ with the help of payment applications like Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay. Digital gold purchase enables users to purchase gold from as low as Re 1. These payment applications have collaborated with MMTC - PAMP (a joint venture between public sector MMTC and Switzerland's PAMP SA) or SafeGold to sell gold.

Sovereign Gold Bonds

Sovereign Gold Bonds are one of the best and most secured way to invest in god. These bonds are issued by the RBI and represent grams of physical gold. People can buy SGBs from banks, post offices, Stock Holding Corporation of India, and from authorised stock exchanges of India. The minimum investment quantity in SGB is one gram.