Retail Investors and Gold Buying Behaviour – A Perpetual Study of Indian Retail Investors

Gold is one of the oldest precious metals known to man and for years it has been valued as a global currency, an investment, a commodity and an object of beauty and India is not an exception to this. India’s love affair with gold is timeless spanning over centuries and millennia. With globalisation various investment avenues were made available to investors. However there is difference in the perceptions of the investors. So this paper makes an attempt to understand the factors that influence the buying behavior of Indian retail investors with respect to gold buying. The objectives of the paper are to identify the favorable and unfavorable perception of the consumers towards their belief in Gold buying behavior, towards their Motives behind the Physical gold buying behavior, towards the Risk behind gold buying (both physical gold as well as Paper form -Mutual fund / ETF) behavior and towards gold buying behavior due to various attributes of gold. The results of the study indicate that the ease at the time of purchase and high liquidity has resulted into Gold being highly preferred Investment Avenue as against the others.