Grow with Gold: Gold in last 35 years

Gold has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years right before our eyes, now raring to cross the Rs.20,000 mark. Infact we hear that it may soon cross the Rs.22,000 mark. Good for investment though. Contrast this with just 30 years ago when gold was unbelievably less than Rs. 1000. This chart( present in store) takes you through the remarkable rise in gold prices in the last 35 years.

(Click on the chart to enlarge the image)

Chart Courtesy : www.vinaya.co.in.

Good time to buy/invest in gold.

Last 2 days have been hectic so i am stealing the time this morning to post this. Gold prices hitting 18,100 for 24k and 17,300 for 22k has definitely brought cheer to the consumers and jewellers alike.

Jewellery buying is becoming cyclical with wedding season and festivities driving the sales. And July month end sees nothing of these two.

Consumers and jewellers have been booking gold for the upcoming festive season and you shouldn't miss out too. Over the past many years this pattern has repeated itself umpteen number of times. And you dont need to be a rocket scientist to guess this time around. Prices will rise when we near the diwali/christmas 2010.

Cheers and happy shopping :)

P.S. Get in touch with us about our "Gold Bonanza Offer" where your investment in gold can earn you 4% interest per annum.

Gold hits 2010 season's lowest

Good news but a little late. Finally gold is hitting new lows and touched Rs.15,800/22ct. It helped bring in much needed activity int he jewellery retail front. Just in time for the last phase of wedding this winter season before it picks up in the middle of the year.

And to make this seem like a deal, fresh new designs in Bangles, Rings, chains have just arrived. We will post the pics soon.

Gold prices bring back smiles in time for Diwali 2008

Diwali is around the corner and gold prices have fallen just in time to something which will bring smile to your face. Today i.e. as of Oct. 22nd, 2008 the gold prices for 24K is Rs.12,450 per 10gms. Which means for 22K the prices of gold are Rs. 12,050 per 10 gms.

Prices just a week ago made the predictions of a gold-less diwali come true. Prices were 13,350 on the 15th Oct. Which means there has been a fall of 1000 rupees within a week.

Most of the year has been lacklustre for the jewellers owning to high gold prices. And Diwali a traditionally auspicious season to buy gold was much anticipated by both shoppers and jewellers. Shoppers were looking to make the important purchase for their weddings/gifting while jewellers are trying to meet their sales target.

More smiles coming next with our Diwali offers.

Photo Credit : Sean-b

Gold prices firm up, Is it speculation or US financial markets?

This just in. Its almost 10:30 pm on Wednesday night. And it pulled me out of my bed. Gold prices have shot up to cross Rs.12,500 at MCX(the commodity trading exchange). What looks like the first thing that comes close to explaining this is the melting US financial markets. The LEHMAN brothers and Merrill lynch being the leaders of the pack. On closer look one sees this as a belated effect. Isnt the Lehman story 24 hrs old? So why did this knee jerk reaction take so long? Could it be finally that the speculators have grouped together and taken the gold markets on a ride.

This is a slow period for the commercial markets especially in India with sales picking up during the festive season beginning with the navratras. Navratras start from Oct 1. So a lot of jewellers were planning to ramp up stock for the festive season now. And looks like the speculators have had eyed this opportunity. This can make the festive/marriage season bitter not just for shoppers but jewellers too.

Gold prices have been firming up over the last week( you can look at the last weeks prices in the right column under the heading Today's Gold prices), which confirmed a see-saw pattern in gold prices. But this is a roller coaster, what can I say, Buckle Up!

Funny thing life is: I cannot help but contrast my mood between the last post and this one. Read it for yourself and compare.

Gold prices may fall further by Rs.600

More good news for consumers and jewellers alike. Gold is slated to fall by another Rs. 600 in the coming week. It will hover around Rs.11,000 for 24K gold. This fall has been a resultant of strengthening dollar and falling crude.

We know from first hand experience that when the gold prices recently fell. Their was a huge shortage of raw metal and gold fetched a premium over the prevailing prices. With India's festive season of Diwali ahead gold demand is slated to rise. This would again push the prices up. So this looks like a momentary dip. It would be prudent not to wait for gold prices to fall beyond this level.

Questions around falling gold prices

Gold prices make news when they rise or even when they fall. And last weeks crashing gold prices didnt just sent consumers on a buying spree but also a topic of hot conversations on both sides of the counter.

A few topics of conversations around this phenomenon which I was a part of or over heard my colleagues take it in the store.

Consumer: Is this a good time to buy gold or should I wait a little more?
Aditya: Remember what happened in stocks. People thought sensex will touch 25,000 and refrained from profiting when they could. It tanked and touched 14,000 instead. Similarly when gold was on an upswing there were rumours it would touch 15,000 per 10 gms. It tanked to 11,000 and now people think it will touch 8,500. I would beg to differ. Any kind of investments should be done in phases and thus making a median gain than trying to hit the bottom.
Consumer: Kyun Bhaisahab! Fall in gold prices must be hurting jewellers?
Aditya: No. Not Really, In fact quite the opposite.
Consumer: With eyeballs popping out. hows that?
Aditya: When the gold prices were sizzling hot at Rs. 13, 600 or so, the flow of customers had slowed to a trickle. People weren't sure if this is the benchmark price they should get used to. For a lot of people it made their budget go haywire. Now when the prices have fallen people are queuing back to jewellery stores.
Consumer: What about the jewellery/gold bought at higher prices. Aren't they of lower value?
Aditya: Sure it is, but every time a piece of jewellery is sold, the equivalent of gold is brought the same day at the same prices. I have a post on this. So a jeweller's margin(that of making charges) is intact.
Consumer: But why this sudden fall in gold prices?
Aditya: One aspect is sure that US dollar has become stronger vis-a-vis Indian rupees. And as a thumb rule they move opposite each other. Both gold and US dollar vie for the Big hedge funds, Financial institutions' money. And as dollar shows promising signs of beating the inflation, a lot of money is taken out of gold and put into them. The opposite happened when dollar was tanking. Gold rose. How its related to crude is not clear. Visitors to this blog are welcome to comment.

Attractive time to buy gold

Look at whats happened to gold. Its touched a low of Rs. 11, 860 per 10 gms for 24K on 08/08/08 in Delhi. And no ones complaining: Neither the buyers nor the jewellers.

Our sales personnel haven't heaved a sigh of relief for the last couple of days. When they are not attending customers they are making calls to our existing customers informing them of the current gold prices. I am personally calling up friends, relatives and acquaintances.

This time of the year is usually slow in sales for the jewellery industry. But this fall in gold prices has been a shot in the arm for the sales of both gold jewellery and gold bars/biscuits. So much so that people are planning ahead and buying gold for the marriage season. As gold prices are expected to rise again during that time.

So, Should you buy gold now? There are both sides of the line still. You will find experts advising to buy gold now and not really wait for it to hit bottom. While some are of the belief that gold prices are slated to fall further to Rs. 11, 000.

Whatever your call. You can not blame prices not being within reach for your important gold purchases anymore. Be it investments, marriage or gifts.

A few updates on this blog

A few announcements on whats new in this blog. Regular visitors must have noticed the right column has a few new things. We did this for a few reasons.

We cannot predict the price of gold but we can make the internet a better place to search for it. An update reflecting gold prices in our store on a daily basis would be available to our blog readers. We will try to update it after 12:30pm on days the market is open. So keep coming often to check the gold prices. We wish we could RSSize it. I will dig more into how can get them in your blogreader.

Google provides some interesting tools to help us share our knowledge of the jewellery world through the Custom Search Engine. We will keeping adding sites to this so that you get highly relevant search results quickly.

Thirdly, we are online a lot of times and would like visitors to take advantage of that fact by throwing question at us. Though right now I cannot commit on the times of the day and days of the week I will be available. So its going to be a little random. You can always send us your questions on info{@}kathana{.}in(Please remove the parenthesis to get our contact info). I check that on a regular basis.

5 ways to save money on new gold/diamond jewellery

I have been wanting to write this post before the recent drop in gold prices but time not permitting, I kept procrastinating till now. With the current gold prices its never too late I guess.

SO here I am aggregating 5 ways to save money if gold purchasing is on the agenda:

1) Stretch the money thin: 1 gm gold ornaments are a hit and available at many stores. Read more on this here and here.

2)14k Gold: Jewellery ornaments made in 14K contain less gold. I mentioned all the virtues of going for low caratage in your jewellery here.

3) Chains minus the weight: You can find a lot of very heavy looking chains which are actually hollow. "A lot of chains are being made hollow and the reduction in weight is compensating for the rise in gold prices," said Roy Lynch, director of Strictly Gold.

4) Join a loyalty program : Retailers(likeTanishq, Kathana) entice consumers with a loyalty program where points accumulates and can be redeemed for various discounts and sometimes with free gold.

5) Exchange Old gold for New: Read my earlier blog post on this here.

Photo Credits: 24thcentury via flickr.com

And gold came tumbling after....

the stock market meltdown. Gold prices are down to Rs. 12,250(24K) from Rs.13,450 just 3 days ago. Earlier the stock market saw valuations eroding due to profit booking and now the gold investors have followed suit.

Gold buyers can heave a sigh of relief now albeit with some caution. Since the turmoil is going to continue it will be some more days before the dust settles on this.

This news comes almost at the end of the wedding season. So a lot of consumers had resorted to either exchanging their old jewellery or keeping jewellery purchases to a minimum. A lot of jewellers (including us) saw sales going down substantially upto even 85%. So with this news, even the jeweller community can now take off their oxygen ventilators.

Handling volatile gold prices: A jeweller's perspective

"You guys must be making a killing with the high gold prices" quipped a customer recently. And went on to elaborate that since a jeweller has a huge stock which was bought prior to this price surge, when the gold rate was Rs. 10,000/10 gms. Its a no brainer that with current prices his logic seemed correct. Think for a moment gold bought at 10,000 and sold at 11,500 is certainly a 15% hike in a span of few weeks. Plus there is making charges. Phew!!

He even suggested that we should freeze our prices at say Rs. 10,500 and that would attract a lot more customers. A smile broke on my face on hearing this.

But what would happen if the prices were to fall suddenly because that too happens. Then a jeweller would certainly have to face huge losses?

The volatility of gold prices is largely unpredictable but the jeweller community has found an ingenious way to handle it. Whenever a jeweller makes a sale at say Rs. 11,500 within minutes the same quantity of gold is purchased from the bullion market at around the same prices. which means the jewellers stock of gold is maintained constant. Whether that happens now when the prices are at 11,500 or when the prices were Rs. 10,000, I explained.

Almost immediately came the next question: So how do jewellers who advertise a lower rate than the prevailing rate do it. Simple try spotting the hallmark logo or claim of the jewellery being hallmarked on that advertisement. Chances are it isn't.

Related Posts:

Deconstructing a jewellery ad