Living with inflation, holding real assets

[5 min read, open as pdf]

• Nominal bonds suffer in an inflationary regime
• Real assets provide resilience, but are more volatile
• Market-implied rates suggest inflation is here to stay for the medium-term

 
Nominal bonds suffer in an inflationary regime.  Real assets provide resilience in an inflationary regime, but have higher volatility.  Our Liquid Real Assets index combines rate-sensitive assets and inflation-sensitive assets to capture real asset return patterns, with bond-like volatility.

Underlying exposures to Gold, Energy, Precious Metals, Agriculture and Industrial Metals have all driven performance of the index year-to-date.  The Liquid Real Assets index has outperformed gilts by 8.91ppt with similar risk characteristics.

Portfolio managers and advisers who are looking to 1) reduce or remove nominal bond exposure, 2) want real asset exposure for inflation protection, and 3) want to maintain volatility budget can consider a lower-risk real assets strategy as an alternative.

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