Commodity Online
MUMBAI: During these days of economic meltdown and volatile movements on stocks and commodities markets, what is the best avenue of investment? For the Indian investors, the biggest investment route is indeed gold, says a new survey. Most Indians prefer to put their money in the yellow metal.

In fact, even though the ING Investor Dashboard Sentiment Index for India painted a gloomy picture for the country, it has some Silver lining as far as Gold is concerned.

The survey said the global gloom and terror attack have consolidated investors’ faith in gold.

According to the survey, investor sentiment index for India has taken a beating by 54% in 2008 and the India investor sentiment registered a quarterly fall of 51% in Q4 2008.

The survey said India index slumped by 54% year-on-year to 76 for Q4 2008 from 167 for Q4 2007.

Amidst the current financial meltdown and economic slowdown, more Indian investors view all kinds of risk/return (high-risk, medium-risk and low-risk) investments as unfavorable. Gold, however, still remains a popular investment tool.

The survey said 97% of Indian investors invested in Gold in Q4 2008 compared to 42% in Q3 2008. And 34% invested in overseas mutual funds and unit trusts in Q4 2008 compared to a mere 1% in Q3 2008

Investments in real estate substantially increased in the past quarter with 26% of investors investing in local residential real estate (self) in Q4 2008, compared to only 1% in Q3 2008, and 43% in local commercial real estate in Q4 2008 compared to 12% in Q3 2008. Investors, however, indicated they plan to invest substantially less in real estate in Q1 2009.

 Investments in allocated pension/annuity also increased to 21% in Q4 2008 compared to only 9% in Q3 2008.

Around 58% of investors invested in local stocks in Q4 2008, compared to 74% in Q3 2008 and fewer investors say they plan to invest in stocks in Q1 2009 as well.

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