As rupee falls 7% so far in 2026, Feroze Azeez urges Indian citizens to sell small amounts of gold

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Virusha, let's shift focus to the rupee.

[00:00:02]We've seen a recent RBI intervention, you know, even in the past a bit through capping banks net open FX positions or even now announcing a $5 rupee swap. But, you know, can it further hold on to the firepower to lift the currency? And for how long? That's the question.

[00:00:20]Uh Lubisha, I think of course you rightly said RBI is doing its best. It gave $5 swap. Swaps imply that a person who has an import can swap or an exporter can swap INR to USD.

[00:00:34]And and that kind of infusion is possible. $5 is what I think yesterday was announced. So, RBI is doing its bit.

[00:00:42]Government can do its bit of course by discouraging electronic imports which are not so essential and so on and so forth.

[00:00:50]Discouraging gold import. Uh that's that's what I think the population of the country has to do. Now, I'll take you a little on the digression side. RBI is doing everything in its might. Of course, a country which has had very little depreciation. Now, people keep cribbing about rupee depreciate ho gaya.

[00:01:07]Right? Last 10 years, what has happened of rupee's depreciation? If I put things in context, if you look at the top 10 economies of the country of the world and relatively see which of these currencies have depreciated 1 year, 3 year, 5 year, and 10 year related to US dollar.

[00:01:22]Uh you'd be surprised that on a 10-year basis we have depreciated and Japanese yen has depreciated. And also uh GBP has depreciated. These are some of the large economies. Euro is one of the only few currencies which have appreciated without these US dollars in 10 years.

[00:01:38]But, between the 5-year period of 2016 to 2021, our currency didn't depreciate too much.

[00:01:45]It just depreciated about 3-4% for those 5-year period. So, what am I trying to get to is for the 5-10 year period we have depreciated 30%, 30.5% and Japanese yen has also depreciated 30.5%.

[00:01:59]These are the two large economies. So, our currency has depreciated, but it also gave a 5-year very very strong place, almost only 6% depreciation 5-year pocket 2016 to 2021. The last 5 years has been very very very painful and I'm just asking people to not lose hope. Last 5 years depreciation is 14 24.7% and that's reasonably painful.

[00:02:22]Now, coming to what can RBI do? RBI can monetize gold maybe, but more RBI's hand in RBI's hand it is to encourage FII flows, encourage FCNR deposits, encourage or or reduce the liquidity of rupee in the market.

[00:02:40]If you do that, liquidity squeezing there is a short-term blip and a relief rally in rupee that is possible. So, RBI can do all of this and they are far more equipped to take that. What can we do?

[00:02:50]The most Okay, let me make a very strong statement. Most ridiculous import is the gold import of 76 billion dollars which we did last year. That too at the peak of gold. Not even at the peak of gold in the month of last year's March or April or June when the prices were low. We imported maximum gold in January-February when gold price was 56 hundred dollars per ounce. So, the most ridiculous money spent of dollar reserves is to buy gold import, especially when you have 4 trillion plus dollars of gold sitting in the country. Can you not monetize 1% 1 and 1/2% of that? I think each Indian should love gold, of course. They do love FDs and golds. They should also love the country, which they are, and I'm trying to create an abhiyan or at least catalyze an abhiyan. Who am I to create an abhiyan? I'm trying to catalyze an abhiyan. There if every Bharatiya Nagrik can average sell 1%, We will not need gold import this year.

[00:03:55]And jo desh se kare pyaar woh gold bechne se kaise kare inkar? That's the key theme I'm trying to work on and I'm doing my bit because there is no point not no point not booking profits after a rally unprecedented which thousands of years didn't do to gold. Last one year did a rally greater than thousands of years.

[00:04:14]Thousands of years. Okay, my 10th ancestor was not born when gold gold was there. Gold has come from zero to $2,000 in thousands of years.

[00:04:24]From 2,000 goes to 5,000 and people want to buy at that price.

[00:04:28]Basic mathematics and finance textbook also tell you sell high, buy low. And so book your profits of 2-3% if HNI books 3% profit, will it be the average for the country be 1%? Then gold import is zero, your balance of payment is $65 billion uh for the year expected.

[00:04:50]average. That's what Anand Rathi is doing with 13,800 families and we will do our best and quite a few clients are very encouraging. They they're giving me receipts of their sales and my CEO's also wife has sold and she's given me a receipt of 11 lakh 79,000. So if you're attached to gold, if you have emotions attached to gold, I'm sure you also have emotions attached to the country.