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Comment by jebus989 | Hacker News Reader

> You can't even hedge inflation without the stock market (or real estate, if you can afford the buy-in).

See also: treasury inflation-protected securities (TIPS).

The shortest maturing TIPS is 5 years. While you can sell your TIPS early, it has to be through the secondary market. And that involves transferring your TIPS to a 3rd party broker (and fees). I can't imagine its worth the trouble unless you need to get out of a 10 or 30 year TIPS. TIPS doesn't compare at all to a personal savings account.

Erm, just buy a TIPS fund like VIPSX from Vanguard.

First, my whole point is to stay out of the markets. Your suggestion to buy VIPSX is the exact opposite.

Second, go compare the past year of VIPSX vs inflation you'll see that VIPSX is shit. Inflation has steadily increased by 5%, but VIPSX has been all over the place (it was actually down 2% last month) and is currently only up 1%. This is, again, not what normal people need.

Your points in order were:

1. There's no way to hedge against inflation (you didn't know TIPS existed)

2. Having learned about TIPS you assert they're illiquid and can't be traded easily (you didn't know about TIPS funds)

3. Having learnt about TIPS funds you don't the recent returns of a specific fund (you don't know that TIPS adjustments lag reported inflation numbers)

You conveniently ignored this part of my first sentence: "...all financial vehicles for savers have been gutted." The line about hedging inflation was just a supporting detail for my main idea.

And your assertion that TIPS funds lags inflation doesn't hold water. Again, go compare the past year of inflation vs VIPSX. They don't track. By simply being a market traded product, a TIPS fund has speculation built into the price. Which, I'm arguing, is against the best interest of the average person just trying to save for their future.

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