rediffGURU Jinal Mehta answers readers' financial planning and health insurance queries
'It makes sense to have gold in one's portfolio keeping the political and economic risks of 2024 in mind.'
rediffGURU Ramalingam Kalirajan answers your personal finance queries.
rediffGURU and financial planning expert Colonel Sanjeev Govila (retd) answers your personal finance-related questions.
Loan against gold as a product is catching on fast. Let's keep the momentum going, but aim for sustainable growth. A few bad apples should not ruin the brunch, argues Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The total number of unique investors directly investing in the stock market has surged to 80 million for the first time, with the latest 10 million additions taking place in just eight months, according to data shared by the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the country's largest bourse. "The 80 million unique PAN (permanent account number) investors correspond approximately to around 50 million unique households in India amounting to around 17 per cent households directly investing in the Indian stock market via NSE's extensive nationwide network of trading members," said the exchange. In 2021, the number of domestic households were pegged at 300 million.
'Gold prices thrive on volatility and more so when the stock markets trend downward.'
Only 21 tonnes of gold have been mobilised in the last eight years under the gold monetisation scheme (GMS) which was announced by the Government of India in November 2015. This could be considered as a failure as the scheme has undergone several changes with a revamped GMS announced in April 2021 to improve collections. This figure was released by the World Gold Council (WGC) on Wednesday in its report titled 'Gold Investment Market and Financialisation, in India gold market series'.
'It's important that every portfolio is well diversified.' 'My own portfolio is diversified across asset classes: 50% is in equity funds, 15% in international schemes, 25% in debt funds and 10% in sovereign gold bonds.'
In 2022, gold emerged as the top performer among all conventional asset classes with over 14 per cent returns mainly owing to the depreciation of the rupee.
Gold burnished its image as the go-to asset class during turbulent times. However, investors seemed to have missed the bus. Net inflows into gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) plunged to a four-year low of Rs 653 crore in 2022-23 (FY23), even as gold emerged as the top-performing asset class.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Anil Rego, CEO, Right Horizons, answers your personal income tax queries.
Given the prevailing uncertainties, investors must maintain a 10-15 per cent allocation to gold in 2023.
Those interested in investing in gold have shifted to instruments, such as sovereign gold bonds and gold ETFs. Many others are, in fact, selling gold or using it as collateral to generate short-term liquidity.
'Avoid going overweight on gold. But maintain a 10 per cent allocation via sovereign gold bonds,' Bajaj Capital MD Sanjiv Bajaj tells Sarbajeet K Sen.
Despite its recent underperformance, gold must be a part of your portfolio.
For the first time, consumers, including those at the so-called bottom of the pyramid, are monetising gold by taking loans from banks, offering the yellow metal as collateral, says Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The finance ministry (FinMin) has asked Infosys to work on ways to extract and access taxpayers' real-time data faster and accurately as it is crucial for taking decisions on policy changes. While reviewing progress of the income tax portal 2.0, which had faced glitches, the officials also told the Infosys team to increase the scope of pre-filled data in the ITR forms. Senior officials in the ministry held a review meeting last month with the Infosys team and officials of the Central Processing Centre (CPC).
If you pledge market-linked instruments and their value plummets, you will have to provide additional collateral, points out Sanjay Kumar Singh.
The government was also faced with problems on its balance of payments. It took steps to conserve declining foreign exchange reserves, and began to regulate the production, supply and distribution of gold. It banned forward trading in the yellow metal in November 1962, and introduced gold bonds as well, reveals the RBI's annual report for the year ending June 1963.
Young investors could allocate in the proportion of 70:20:10 to equity, debt and gold.
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com speaks to common folk in Tamil Nadu about whether they will invest in Arun Jaitley's gold monetisation scheme. Their reactions will not make the Union finance minister happy.
'Gold could return 10% to 12% in the next two-three years.'
Given the economic trends, it might make sense to allocate some savings to gold.
People can deposit idle gold with authorised agencies and take advantage of the price escalation of gold as well as earn interest on the deposit.
Gold deposited by households to gold savings accounts will be used for auctioning, replenishment of RBI's gold reserves.
'Investors with as little as Rs 1 can start investing in digital gold.'
Veterans recall they haven't seen gold falling for 3 years in a row.
'In most schemes, where the monthly investment is a fixed amount, investors run the risk of the price of gold rising during the tenure of the recurring deposit,' notes Harsh Roongta.
The rising price of the precious metal has helped the central bank increase overall forex reserves despite currency reserves not rising, and sometimes even falling.
Industry estimates over 30 tonnes of gold were sold on Akshaya Tritiya this time.
This is good news for the central government at a time when crude oil prices are rising.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Gold loans can be released online or by bank transfers.
Those who have crossed 50 must show the greatest urgency. They need to achieve a corpus that can sustain them and their spouses for at least 25-30 years after retirement.
India has 20,000 tonnes of idle gold; gold is an important aspect of women empowerment: PM.
There are 350,000 jewellers, of which 13,000 are BIS-certified.
'You should always maintain an allocation to gold as it has the ability to counterbalance any correction in the equity market.'
'Gold could benefit from the resulting risk aversion, as happened last year.'
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