ETF, digital gold, mutual funds: Where to invest to save Rs 25 lakh for daughter’s wedding

Each week, our experts answer readers' queries related to personal finance and financial planning. Here are this week's investment queries from our readers.

I need to save about Rs 25 lakh to buy gold for my daughter’s wedding which is around 5 years away. What is the best way to go about it? Gold ETF, digital gold, or mutual funds? Sovereign bonds is ruled out due to liquidity factor.

Raj Khosla, Founder and Managing Director, MyMoneyMantra.com, replies: With a defined mid-term goal, you should opt for a mix of physical or digital gold, and gold ETFs and mutual fund investment options. Buy digital/physical gold for a lump sum of Rs 5 lakh or according to your purchase appetite. Next, you should start SIP in two gold ETFs such as HDFC Gold Fund and Kotak Gold Fund for Rs 5,000 each, for the next five years. You should also try to capture benefit of compounding returns from mutual funds by starting two more SIPs of Rs 5,000 each in equity diversified funds, for the next five years. Gold funds and digital gold can be redeemed on short notice, as per your requirement after five years. Twelve months prior to your cash flow requirements, realign equity mutual fund corpus to debt funds. The combo investment route should help you accumulate Rs 25 lakh for gold purchase after five years.


I invested in shares through my brother’s demat account a couple of years ago. He got stock options from his company and I bought 1,000 shares. How do I now move the shares to my demat account? I don’t want to sell the shares.

Vikash Jain, Co-founder, Share Samadhan Pvt Ltd, replies: If you want to transfer the shares from your brother’s demat account to your account, your brother needs to sign a Delivery Instruction Slip (DIS) of his demat account in your favour mentioning the details of shares to be transferred and your demat account details and then submit the DIS to his broker where he holds the demat account. After successful processing of DIS, shares will be transferred from your brother’s demat account to yours. Request your brother to approach his broker to give the DIS.