Thursday 19 April 2012

Indian Gold ETFs promoted as jewellery demand drops

Physical demand will drive the price of gold but news from India - the largest and most watched market is not entirely encouraging.

While the Akshaya Tritiya festival will lift jewellery demand, analyst Marc Ground at Standard Bank said "the pace of demand is not to the extent that we expected" (reports BullionVault)

But financial gold could still get a boost as the Indian gold exchange traded fund market continues to grow fast and India's National Stock Exchange will reportedly waive transaction fees on physical gold ETFs and extend trading hours on April 24.

It happened in May last year and again in October, the latter prompting the heaviest gold ETF buying day ever on the exchange.

Despite expectations that new taxes and higher gold prices will dampen demand some ETF providers expect more people to use ETFs.