Buying gold

I have been wanting to buy a bit of gold as investment for quite some time now, but never really made the effort to. Thanks to Ummu Auni and Cik Yan who had shared some information on this. MHH and I resolved to act around last Ramadhan. But price were climbing up. We chose to wait. With the global financial crisis looming, more people are choosing to invest in gold rather than stocks. This has caused the price of gold to rise.

Last Friday, the price went down by quite a bit, so I wanted to go visit the nearest Maybank branch that offers this facility. I called first, and was told that they have no stock whatsoever. The lady who answered explained that they would have stock whenever someone sold them the coins back, or when there’s enough customer order then they will purchase some more from BNM.

I wanted to ask further on how the ‘customer order’ works. Does this mean that we can’t choose which day to buy? If coins are available when someone sells to them, then there are more chances of the coins being available at a time when price is high, because that’s when people would want to sell. The lady wanted to pass me to an officer, but my boss called me while I was waiting, so I didn’t manage to clarify further. I had earlier thought that it’s not difficult to purchase a coin. But now, it seems like a lot depends on stock availability. I wonder if it’s possible to purchase direct from BNM? But surely a huge organisation which acts more as a regulatory body, wouldn’t offer this kind of small transactions with end customers?

I wonder also about the passbook option. I suppose it doesn’t matter it the branch doesn’t really have the physical gold? One can still ‘buy’ on paper (or passbook, in this case). Perhaps this is one the reasons it’s not an Islamic product? (Not that I know the principles of Islamic banking lah). I had earlier (before raya) went to a Maybank Islamic branch to inquire. The officer said the passbook is not an Islamic product, but the coins are okay. I had asked why, but he wasn’t sure and had to refer to his supervisor/colleague who weren’t around then.

When googling, I had come across this blog, which may contain some useful information and links on investing in gold.

Read what Ustaz Zaharuddin wrote regarding gold passbook recently here.