The perfect inflation hedge hasn’t been found. That’s unfortunate, since U.S. inflation has taken a big jump, intensifying the search for an investment that will thrive during times of high inflation.
Gold GC00, -0.19% doesn’t do much better, despite its reputation as the ideal inflation hedge. On the one hand, its short-term correlation with inflation is better than stocks, but not by much. The correlation coefficient between monthly changes in gold bullion and the Consumer Price Index is just 0.12 since 1970, versus minus 0.06 for the S&P 500 SPX, -0.10%. If gold were perfectly correlated with inflation, of course, this coefficient would be 1.0.
ETFs designed to be inflation hedges Several different exchange-traded funds have been created in an attempt to fill this void in the investment landscape. Yet they largely come up short, according to an analysis conducted by Nicholas Rabener, founder & CEO of FactorResearch in London. He reports that the correlations of these ETFs with the CPI are surprisingly low, and the funds have a spotty record at best of producing positive real returns.
I reached a similar conclusion when correlating this ETF with changes in expected inflation, rather than realized inflation. For expected inflation, I focused on the inflations expectation model constructed by the Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank. The correlation coefficient in this case was 0.12, worse than the 0.14 figure that emerged when focusing on realized inflation.
One of the problems with over hedging against inflation is that it could be followed by a market downturn in which case you will be hit even harder had you left your money alone.
Sweet
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