Is buying gold jewellery as investment a good option?

Off late, there has been a lot of unpredictability in the markets as it has been fluctuating with increasing frequency. In such scenarios, investors are bound to worry about their investments. A number of people look for the safest avenue for investing their money and start analyzing the merits and demerits of mutual funds, stocks, gold and real estate.
Indians have always been crazy about gold. With the World Gold Council (WGC) aggressively marketing social and religious functions as gold buying events, the demand for the metal as shot up in past years.
The most tried and tested way to survive the market instability is through goal-based investing. This process accounts for your risk and time parameter, the investment recommendations you receive are best suited to help you meet your needs. Thus, it is always suggested that when you are investing you are very well prepared and aware of the market fluctuations.
While analyzing various aspects of investing in place of equity, during times of market volatility, people often tend to be inclined towards investing in gold. Gold has always been considered as a safe form of investment.
It is a common phenomenon of every Indian family having the exposure to gold in the form of coins or jewelry. Often people buy gold jewelry to flaunt it as a sign of their wealth and can easily liquidate it in times of need. Moreover, Gold prices are always increasing thus buying gold is also considered as an investment.
But every smart investor knows the fact that the financial market is ever-changing, which is why we cannot evaluate an asset depending on its previous performance. Until now, gold has had a good run and most people buy it to have a physical asset which gives them some mental safety as well.
It is undeniable that gold has given returns only in line with or lesser than the inflation rate. One major problem with gold is that of liquidity.
Gold has socio-economic value for most Indians and in times of need, people find it tough to sell their gold. This does not fulfill the main motive of buying gold, which is to use it at in times of uncertainties.
Yet another demerit of owning gold, besides safety and storage is that, when selling gold jewelry, the owner loses a lot of money in melting the jewelry and gets a much lesser amount as compared to the price paid at the time of buying the jewelry. To clarify, the resale value of gold decreases because of the jewelry ‘breaking’ charges. Also, note that the making charges are way too high with respect to buying jewelry as well.
Investment in gold does not provide any current income, such as the dividend or rentals like in the case of stocks and real estate where investors can get regular rewards from their investment without having to sell their asset.
Thus, in the current scenario, taking in mind the above demerits of investing in gold, it is advisable not to invest in gold.