Difference between Gold Saving Funds and Gold ETF’s ?

Gold ETF’s : Let’s understand this for a moment. In simple terms, these are financial products which invests in physical gold and tracks its pricing on day to day basis. These ETFs have their own expense ratio which is considered very high if compared to US market, but that’s the price we pay to invest in gold electronically. You need a demat account to invest in Gold ETF and you can trade these ETFs through stock exchange.

Gold Saving funds are nothing but mutual funds which invests majority of its corpus (90%-100%) in Gold ETFs (of the same sister company), a small portion might also be in money market instruments or some short term debt products. But the important point you should note here is that the underlying investment is still gold, but not directly! It’s indirectly through gold ETFs.

So which one is better and which one you should choose ?

We can’t make a general statement that one is good and the other is bad, because it’s not like that. If someone does not have a demat account and wants to automatically invest in gold each month through SIP, gold saving funds are the best option. But for someone who is conscious about the expenses and can invest through his demat amount each month, Gold ETF’s are a good option.One important point is that do not confuse gold saving funds with “gold mutual funds” which are mutual funds investing in gold mining companies, they are totally different.