User:Vendanbala/sandbox

Indians rarely need an occasion to buy gold, because gold buying is virtually a year round phenomenon. But demand does peak on certain days, which are considered auspicious for buying gold, like Akshaya Tritiya and Dhanteras. With Akshaya Tritiya coming up on 13th May, attention is again shifting to buying gold linked products. For some years now, the National Stock exchange has been encouraging investors to invest in Gold exchange traded funds, instead of physical gold, as an investment opportunity. Not only are gold ETF units backed by high purity gold, it is easy to buy and sell the units, on a transparent exchange platform. There are hardly any tax liabilities of investing in Gold ETF's and no worries of storing gold in a locker, because ETF units are deposited in a demat account. Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a huge dip in the prices of gold and investors have been flocking to shops to buy gold, but this should be seen as an opportunity to invest in Gold ETF's rather than physical gold, considering that Gold ETFs are easy to trade, safe and can be traded from an Investor's home and office. Gold is bought throughout the year for various occasions; however the purchases peak around the festive and the wedding seasons. Apart from these two seasons, buying gold is considered highly auspicious on the days of 3½ Muhurtas viz. Akshay Tritiya (Vaishakh shukla trutiya), Gudi Padwa (Chaitra shukla pratipada), Dushera (Ashwin shukla dashami) & Balipratipada (Kartik shukla pratipada). Purchase of gold on these days is considered to bring prosperity into the household and hence several households, make it a point to make at least a token purchase of gold on this day. As an investment product, gold ETF has seen tremendous growth. Year on year Assets under management have seen a growth of 18%, from Rs.9886 crores in March last year to Rs 11,648 crore in March 2013.