People in India since very long time used to invest in gold. In Ancient and medival period also people used to invest in gold via buying gold and/or gold jewelry. Currently in 21st century, people use different techinque to invest in gold. They are all as follows:
Gold bullion - Refiners produce gold bars from one gram to different weights.
Gold coins - These days national or private banks like ICICI Bank, Bank of India, State Bank of India and other major banks sells gold coins. However, if you are looking to buy gold coins worth Rs.50k from banks then PAN card is required. It is important to know that Banks won't buy back your gold coin. They come in different sizes. and available in different sizes, so you can buy the ones that suits your needs the most. The usual sizes are coins of 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 20 and 50 grams.
Read - Gold Jewelry Buying Tips
Read - Check the mythological reasons and story that why Akshaya Tritiya is considered as the best day to buy Gold
Gold certificates - A certificate which represents ownership of gold bullion held by a financial institution. There is an associated fee for storage and insurance.
Gold futures and options - A futures contract traded on one of the futures exchanges, such as the COMEX in New York. This method is generally leveraged and options provide price movement much more than that of gold itself. It can be used to sell short and can be used to benefit from a drop in the price of gold.
Gold Mining stocks - Stock ownership of a company traded on one of the exchanges. The price movement is dependent not only upon the price of gold, but also upon the future of that corp.
Jewelery - By buying Gold Jewelery. Drayback is you have to pay for making charges & wastage associated with it.
Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) - Perhaps the safest method of buying and owning gold by buying shares in a fund based solely on the existing market price of gold.
Gold Mutual funds - Prices move faster and further in both directions than the price of gold.
