A gold necklace bought for a wedding. A designer handbag that could supposedly become more valuable in the resale market. A house bought because property prices “always go up”.
For many Indians, particularly women, these can all feel like investments.
Radhika Gupta, MD & CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, says there is an important distinction to make: something can hold value without necessarily being a good financial investment.
Speaking at the India Today Woman Summit 2026, Gupta separated what she called physical investments from financial investments, and urged investors to think about how easily an asset can actually be converted into money when they need it.
Gupta said she loves jewellery herself, but argued that women should distinguish between buying gold for consumption and buying gold as part of an investment portfolio.
Most people do not regularly liquidate their jewellery, she pointed out. Physical gold also comes with issues such as storage, security and making charges.
“If you are buying gold for the sake of your portfolio, please buy financial gold,” she said.
Investors today have options such as gold funds, which allow them to participate in movements in gold prices without physically storing jewellery or gold.
Gupta also sees gold as one part of a diversified portfolio rather than the entire portfolio. In her “Indian thali” analogy, gold is one of the components alongside equity and debt.
The same logic, Gupta said, applies to luxury handbags.
Women may read stories about expensive Chanel or Hermes bags selling for more than their original prices in the secondary market and conclude that buying one could be an investment.
Gupta’s response is simple: enjoy the handbag, but don’t build a financial plan around the assumption that its value will double.
“I love my handbags too,” she said, before making the distinction between physical and financial investments.
A luxury bag becoming more valuable in the resale market may happen, but Gupta compared betting on that to “winning a jackpot”.
“You can’t bet on winning a jackpot,” she said.
The broader point is that an asset becoming more expensive does not automatically make it a reliable component of a financial plan.
Gupta applies the same distinction to residential property.
She said buying a home in India is deeply emotional and that people should not feel that every financial decision needs to be made on a spreadsheet.
“If you find value in buying a home, please buy a home,” she said. “Life can’t be lived off a spreadsheet.”
But she does not want people to automatically count their primary residence as an investment.
A home provides shelter and emotional value. It is not necessarily an asset that you can or want to sell when you need money.
This becomes important when calculating wealth for retirement. Someone may be “asset rich” because they own a house or several properties but still struggle to access cash when they need it.
Gupta is not against real estate. Her argument is that investors should evaluate property differently when it is being bought purely as an investment.
“Real estate beyond where you live is an investment and you have to measure it on a financial spreadsheet,” she said.
That means looking at the actual returns rather than simply celebrating the fact that a property has become more expensive.
She cited the example of a report about Amitabh Bachchan buying a plot in 2001 and selling it in 2020 for twice the purchase price. While a doubling of value sounds impressive, Gupta argued that investors should compare that return with what other financial investments could have generated over the same period.
The lesson is to compare assets on a like-for-like basis and consider the time taken to generate the return.
There is another issue with property: liquidity.
Gupta pointed to the stress involved in trying to rent out a property, finding tenants, waiting for a building to be completed or finding a buyer when cash is urgently needed.
That is why she repeatedly returned to one idea during the session: access to money matters.
Gupta recalled a comment from her mother-in-law that she considers one of the best descriptions of why liquidity matters.
Her mother-in-law told her that the best thing about mutual funds was that when she needed money, she could get it quickly.
That, she said, gave her “dignity of money” — the ability to access her own money during a crisis without having to depend on a bank manager or wait for a policy to mature.
This is also why Gupta recommends keeping emergency money in safe and accessible investments, rather than locking it away purely to chase a higher return.
Her broader message is that gold jewellery, designer handbags, homes and investment properties can all have value. But value and financial utility are not the same thing.
For someone trying to build wealth, the question should not simply be, “Can this become more expensive?”
It should also be: “Is this helping me build wealth, and can I access that wealth when I actually need it?”
(Disclaimer: The views, opinions, recommendations, and suggestions expressed by experts/brokerages in this article are their own and do not reflect the views of the India Today Group. It is advisable to consult a qualified broker or financial advisor before making any actual investment or trading choices.)