The Federal Reserve says not to worry about the 2.6% jump in the CPI. But the bond market is skeptical and it may be time to get yourself some protection.—lumber prices have tripled., American Water Works and Duke Energy have climbed to 40 times trailing earnings or more.
Maybe. But maybe that CPI jump was not transitory at all. The Economic Cycle Research Institute, a private consulting service, publishes what it calls a Future Inflation Gauge. The FIG, at 95 in September, has recently shot up to 130. What that means, explains ECRI co-founder Lakshman Achuthan, is that the inflation rate is likely to trend up, not turn back down, over the next six months.
Monetary Cassandras have been fretting about coming inflation for years. Until a year ago this gang of worriers looked misguided. Now, if that latest uptick proves not to be so transitory, they may be vindicated. Most of the dozen hedges below take the form of exchange-traded funds. Most of the data on past performance comes from Morningstar. The letter grades, based in part on history and in part on what’s in the air, represent author’s hunches.Treasury Inflation Protected Securities are the most solid insurance plan against CPI surprises. For that reason they are much sought after. Being sought after, they are expensive. Demand has pushed up their prices and depressed their future returns.
The going annual percentage rate on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages is now 3.3%. If you use borrowed money when you move into a new house, you can laugh when the Fed speeds up its money machine. Do you have a mortgage and also have a retirement portfolio that includes bonds? Then you may be on the losing end of an arbitrage—simultaneously earning 2.2% on your Treasuries and paying 3.3% to the bank. It could make sense to sell the bonds, pay tax on the distribution, and use what’s left of the proceeds to pay down the mortgage.
Long-term return: tolerable. Over the past century the metal has appreciated at a 1.8% real rate versus 1% for house prices. That makes gold inferior to houses in total return: Houses pay a dividend in the form of living space, while gold has a negative dividend in the form of storage costs. You can expect a total real return on houses of perhaps 4%, on gold of 1.4%.
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