Gold other than physical form is a better avenue with better liquidity and return criteria. And one such form is gold funds which is a suitable investment option for those without demat account. Here in the fund houses collects investors' funds and invest them in ETFs through the bourses. High enough liquidity is provided by these gold funds. So, here are some gold funds, you can consider for investment this year:

1. Aditya Birla Sun Life Gold Fund: The fund in the year 2016 has fetched returns to the tune of 11.5% . The NAV of the fund as on April 17, 2018 is 10.08. Under the growth fund, total assets under management in the fund equals to 53 crore as on March 31, 2018. Expense charges are 0.5%. The fund however carries moderately high risk. Last year, the fund offered returns of 1.6%.

The scheme's underlying benchmark is domestic gold price and it was launched in the year 2012.

2. Invesco India Gold Fund: With a NAV of 9.784 as on April 17, the fund has an AUM of Rs. 13 crore. This fund too is not rated by CRISIL as it does not meet some of their criteria. The scheme launched in the year 2011 In the year 2016, the fund offered doubled digit return to the tune of over 21% while last year the return came in at a reduced rate of 1.3%.

3. SBI Gold Fund: The NAV of the fund is 9.963 as on April 17. The fund with total assets under management of Rs. 375 crore carries a lower expense charge of 0.45%. In the year 2016, the fund fetched 10% return while in the previous year it fetched 3.5%. Minimum investment in the scheme is for Rs. 5000 and in multiples of Rs. 1000 as additional payment.

4. Reliance Gold Savings Funds: The investment objective of the Scheme is to seek to provide returns that closely correspond to returns provided by Reliance ETF Gold BeES. The NAV of the fund as on April 17 is 13.30 and the fund manages a corpus of Rs. 664 crore. In the previous year, the fund garnered returns of 1.6% against the previous year returns of 11.6%

5. Kotak Gold Fund: The fund carries high risk with total Rs. 164 crore funds under its realm. Since the launch of the fund in 2011, the fund has managed to provide 4% returns. While its return in the year 2016 has been 10.2% while in 2017 it fetched 2.5% returns.

Why gold fund investment scores?

Gold investment scores due to their high liquidity as well as availability of rupee cost averaging benefit as both SIPs as well as SWPs are allowed in it. Also the initial investment amount in few of the funds can be as low as Rs. 1000.

Another attractive feature is that you don't need to maintain a demat or trading account for buying in gold bonds. Also as these are not traded on the bourses, they can be redeemed based on the day's net asset value or NAV
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