These days Indians can transfer up to USD 250,000 per year for the purposes of buying US stocks: https://transferwise.com/au/blog/rbi-fema-guidelines-remittance

These days Indians can transfer up to USD 250,000 per year for the purposes of buying US stocks: https://transferwise.com/au/blog/rbi-fema-guidelines-remittances https://transferwise.com/au/blog/rbi-fema-guidelines-remitta... But for mainly cultural reasons Indians still invest huge amounts in Gold, and the opportunity cost is significant. Here is the ratio of gold price to Dow Jones index for last 100 years [0]. Let's say that every 5 years starting in 1915 you had a choice of investing in gold or US stocks for 50 years. Here's the relative outcome for each of your investments for each period: From Date Dow/Gold To Date Dow/Gold Ratio Feb 1915: 2.86 Jan 1965: 25.57 8.94 Feb 1920: 4.42 Feb 1970: 21.27 4.81 Jan 1925: 5.95 Jan 1975: 3.99 0.67 Feb 1930: 13.10 Feb 1980: 1.30 0.10 Jan 1935: 2.91 Feb 1985: 4.30 1.48 Jan 1940: 4.27 Jan 1990: 6.31 1.48 Feb 1945: 4.58 Feb 1995: 10.65 2.33 Jan 1950: 5.77 Feb 2000: 33.78 5.85 Feb 1955: 11.66 Jan 2005: 24.74 2.12 Feb 1960: 17.85 Feb 2010: 9.32 0.52 Jan 1965: 25.57 Jan 2015: 13.62 0.53 Apr 1969: 22.69 Mar 2019: 20.08 0.88 Now (8.94 * 4.81 * 0.67 * ... ) ^ (1/12) = 1.37 So using the past as a guide, for any given 50-year period you could reasonably expect that US stock prices will on average outperform gold by around 37%. But stocks also pay dividends. Let's say the after-tax dividend payment is 1.5% per year - that's a multiple of 2.1 in 50 years. So total return on stocks will outperform gold by a factor of 2.88 over those 50 years. (And that's without the risk of having gold stolen from under your mattress). [0] http://www.macrotrends.net/1378/dow-to-gold-ratio-100-year-historical-chart http://www.macrotrends.net/1378/dow-to-gold-ratio-100-year-h...