Buying Gold In Usa And Taking To India
Indians are very much obsessed with the yellow gold and most of the expatriates love to purchase gold during their stay abroad owing to its lower prices and high quality. However, due to severe restrictions followed by customs duty imposed by the government of India on gold imports are disheartening people from taking gold to India.
buying gold in usa and taking to india
Annual 2016 demand for gold-backed ETFs and similar products was the second highest on record at 532t, despite Q4 profit-taking. Investment started the year strongly, slowing slightly in the second half, before ending the year with a bout of profit-taking, especially in the US-listed funds.
While there was not significant buying or selling, the sales that did take place came from four principal sources. The USSR continued the gold sales it had begun in the 1950s in order to compensate for the failures of the command economy. South Africa began selling in 1985 when the US imposed sanctions against apartheid. The IMF sold some gold as part of its ultimately unsuccessful bid to establish the Special Drawing Right as a major reserve currency. And the US sold some reserve gold in support of its efforts to secure the dominance of the dollar in the international monetary system.
A year ago, S. Kashinath, an illiterate labourer from Tamil Nadu, lost Rs 300,000 in savings he invested in a pyramid scheme promising high returns from emu farming.Now, Kashinath, and around 23 million other low- to middle-income Indians are being courted by a government scheme to boost investment in local stock markets.The recently introduced Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme (RGESS) - named after the popular prime minister who was assassinated in 1991 - offers Indian investors earning less than Rs 1 million a year a 50 percent tax break on stock investments of up to Rs 50,000.window._rrCode = window._rrCode [];_rrCode.push(function() (function(v,d,o,ai)ai=d.createElement("script");ai.defer=true;ai.async=true;ai.src=v.location.protocol+o;d.head.appendChild(ai);)(window, document, "//a.vdo.ai/core/v-ndtv/vdo.ai.js"); );Kashinath, though, thinks the plan has as much chance of flying as the Australian birds he bought into."I can't even read or write. How do you expect me to buy stocks that I don't understand? My money is stuck, but once I get it back, I'll open a bank account to keep it safe," he told Reuters by telephone.The ambitious scheme, which aims to broaden share ownership, re-energise an unprofitable mutual fund industry and bring some structure to a patchy investment landscape, faces formidable barriers - not least India's love affair with gold.India has one of the world's highest savings rates, at over 30 percent - more than double the United States - and the bulk of the nation's $800 billion in savings is parked in gold.India is the world's biggest gold buyer and holds $1 trillion worth of the precious metal, World Gold Council data shows - more than the combined military spending by the United States, China, Russia and Great Britain."Gold holds an emotional charm for most Indians. Those are some big shoes to fill for any sort of investment," said V Ramesh, Deputy CEO of the Association of Mutual Funds in India.Indians also save cash, in bank savings or certificates of deposit, and increasingly invest in property.Buying shares just doesn't figure for most. Fewer than 5 in every 100 Indians buy equities either directly or through mutual funds, regulatory data show, compared with Gallup's estimate of more than half of Americans - many through their 401k pension plans. In China, an estimated 86 percent of average trading on domestic markets is carried out by retail investors.TABLE TALKThe investment scheme is the brainchild of Thomas Mathew, a former finance ministry official, who reckons more than 23 million Indians - out of a population of 1.2 billion - could be eligible targets. If they all invest the maximum, there could be a potential inflow of Rs 116 trillion - more than double the country's gold assets."We need to go forward with a lot of investor education and financial literacy to drive home the point that equity is not a dangerous animal," he told Reuters. "We have to tap the psyche of people. The dinner table conversations, the tea shop talk. That's how the education takes place."Fund managers, however, say it will be costly and difficult to tap into these millions of small, and often sceptical, investors, many of whom live in small towns and rural areas and don't trust big city stock markets."One thing's very clear: the government's intention is to make mutual funds more acceptable as an investment option on a pan-India basis, said Kailash Kulkarni, CEO of L&T Mutual Fund, which this year bought Fidelity's fund business in India."But there's obviously a cost that will go into this, especially when it comes to getting the manpower in these small towns, and the time that has to be invested."While the scheme could help reduce gold imports, and the damage that has on India's current account deficit, the government also hopes to reduce market dependence on volatile foreign flows. India first allowed foreign investors to buy local shares in 1992, and they now hold nearly a fifth of the total, according to Morgan Stanley data.VOLATILE MARKETSCritics say the scheme could draw ordinary citizens into reckless investing as they have little or no expertise in stock buying. The government is trying to reduce the risks by allowing investments only in the top-100 stocks and encouraging people to buy shares through mutual funds or exchange traded funds.India's stock markets are notoriously volatile. The Sensex has risen or fallen by a double digit percentage rate in 18 of the last 20 years - it is up by more than a fifth so far this year. That instability has already driven out many retail investors. Outflows from equity mutual funds in India rose to a two-year high in September, as investors cashed out of a stock rally."The Indian stock market is a bottomless pit. Why would I risk my money on shares when I can get 8-9 percent on fixed deposits?" said Harshala Apte, a primary schoolteacher in Mumbai whose father lost more than half his net worth in a bear run on the stock markets in 2009.Jitu Dhabaria, an investment adviser in Kolkata, also remains to be convinced. "I've become resigned to getting panic calls from my investors every time the market loses a penny," he said.That said, fund managers say they will consider the new scheme, despite the additional costs."It's a collective failure on our part that in a country of 1.2 billion people our combined assets are what? Some Rs 220 billion," said Nandkumar Surti, CEO at JPMorgan Asset Management India, referring to the industry's assets under management?BRINGING STRUCTURELonger-term, the new scheme may herald a shift in India from what one fund manager executive calls an opportunistic model of attracting investors, to a structural one, emulating the 401k pension model in the United States. The U.S. system, introduced more than three decades ago, allows workers to pay part of their salary into funds."India has lacked that structural market, but clearly there's an intent from the government and from the regulator to change that," said Saurabh Nanavati, CEO of Religare Mutual Fund.For now, India doesn't allow mutual funds to develop pension plans, instead using a state-managed provident fund that invests mainly in government bonds. Until such a plan is brought in, the government is likely to struggle to win around people like Kashinath, who is still smarting from his emu bet.PromotedListen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.com window._rrCode = window._rrCode [];_rrCode.push(function() (function(d,t) var s=d.createElement(t); var s1=d.createElement(t); if (d.getElementById('jsw-init')) return; s.setAttribute('id','jsw-init'); s.setAttribute('src',' _s/embed.js?ver='+Date.now()); s.onload=function()document.getElementById('jads').style.display='block';s1.appendChild(d.createTextNode('JioSaavnEmbedWidget.init(a:"1", q:"1", embed_src:" ","dfp_medium" : "1",partner_id: "ndtv");'));d.body.appendChild(s1);; if (document.readyState === 'complete') d.body.appendChild(s); else if (document.readyState === 'loading') var interval = setInterval(function() if(document.readyState === 'complete') d.body.appendChild(s); clearInterval(interval); , 100); else window.onload = function() d.body.appendChild(s); ; )(document,'script'); ); "Can you help me get my money back? There's a new bank that's promising good returns, I'll probably put it there," he said.Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012
Your deliberations will probably also embrace consideration of the question of the volume and character of our currency. It will not be possible and would not be appropriate for me in this letter to enter upon any elaborate discussion of these questions. One or two things I will say, and first, I believe that every person who thoughtfully considers the question will agree with me upon a proposition which is at the base of all my consideration of the currency question, namely, that any dollar, paper or coin, that is issued by the United States must be made and kept in its commercial uses as good as any other dollar. So long as any paper money issued or authorized by the United States Government is accepted in commercial use as the equivalent of the best coined dollar that we issue, and so long as every coined dollar, whether of silver or gold, is assured of an equivalent value in commercial use, there need be no fear as to an excess of money. The more such money the better. But, on the other hand, when any issue of paper or coined dollars is, in buying and selling, rated at a less value than other paper or coined dollars, we have passed the limit of safe experiment in finance. If we have dollars of differing values, only the poorest will circulate. The farmer and the laborer, who are not in hourly touch with the ticker of the telegraph, will require, above all other classes of our community, a dollar of full value. Fluctuations and depreciations are always at the first cost of these classes of our community. The banker and the speculator anticipate, discount, and often profit by such fluctuations. It is very easy, under the impulse of excitement of the stress of money stringency, to fall into the slough of a depreciated or irredeemable currency. It is a very painful and slow business to get out when once in. 041b061a72