One among the three most auspicious days in the Hindu calendar, Akshaya Tritiya, traditionally witnesses a ‘gold rush’. But experts expect only a marginal 5-10 per cent growth in sales this year, against 20-30 per cent typically, owing to tepid market sentiments.

“Gold prices were on a 15-month high about a month ago, but since then, there has been a correction in the domestic market,” Navneet Damani, Vice-President, Commodity Research at Motilal Oswal Commodities, told BusinessLine . “The rupee is appreciating and so we are seeing Indian (gold) prices under pressure.”

Given that context, Damani says he expects to see a marginal 5-10 per cent increase in sales. “I do not expect a very significant jump to happen,” he added.

On whether the Akshaya Tritiya sales will set the trend for the rest of the year, Damani said that in recent years, there has been a shift in demand from gold to other assets.

“People now tend to buy expensive cars and mobile phones instead of gold, which has not yielded major returns over the past 3-6 years,” he noted. “But these sales will not be benchmark for how sales will pan out over the year.”

Praveenshankar Pandya, Chairman of the Gem & Jewellery Export Promotion Council, said “With the US dollar at a low and with stock markets on a high, I expect a 10 per cent increase in sales.”

Others ways to hold gold

Analysts say investors could consider gold exchange-traded funds, and sovereign gold bonds over physical gold.

“Being in the dematerialised form, gold ETFs offer advantages of savings on security and storage (since they are easy to hold). Gold of 99.5 per cent purity is the underlying asset for all ETFs and hence their performance is almost identical,” said Dhaval Kapadia, Director - Portfolio Strategist, Morningstar Investment Adviser.

The number of investors holding gold through exchange-traded products is growing. At the end of March, total holdings in gold-backed ETFs and similar products stood at 2,251.8t, up by 5.9t from February.

Prathamesh Mallya, Chief Analyst- Non-Agri Commodities & Currencies, Angel Commodities Broking, said, “It is natural for investors to bet on gold as it is a safe haven asset in an uncertain global environment. Our advice to investors would be to buy gold in a staggered manner and benefit from value cost averaging rather than make all your purchases at one go..”

Paytm scheme

Paytm on Thursday launched its ‘Digital Gold’ programme enabling Indians to buy, store and sell pure gold instantly. The facility has been launched in collaboration with gold and silver refinery MMTC-PAMP.

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