Can investment in Gold, Sensex & PPFs give the same returns?

Ritesh Presswalamoneycontrol.comThere are different types of investors and different approaches to investment. Some investors are risk-takers while others want to play it safe.Investing differently in the same asset class can give varied results.To understand the returns from different asset classes in the long-run we took gold, the Sensex and PPF performances over the last 10 years.First, we began with the systematic investment plan (SIP) method. For our purposes, we assumed the investor to have invested Rs 10,000 on the first day of every year for the last 10 years beginning 2007.The results were very interesting. All the asset class have given almost similar returns. On a total investment of Rs 1,00,000 in each asset class over the ten years in question, total returns from gold were Rs 1,42,526; Sensex gave returns of Rs 1,47,793, while public provident funds' (PPF) returns stood at Rs 1,48,000.However, if an investor had invested the lumpsum amount of Rs 1,00,000 in each of the asset classes then gold would have given 173 percent returns while Sensex only 88% and PPF (approximately) 105 percent.(This graph shows returns from the SIP method)