Treasury Inflation Protected Securities And Its Benefits
The government has created record in spending that include $108 trillion in unfunded liabilities for social security, Medicare plus new universal healthcare benefits. This has put the country on risk. With the rates of interest close to zero, the Federal Reserve are not able to take one conventional action – reducing short-term rates – to re-establish the weakened economy.
In this hard economic slump or double-dip recession, politicians – with the reluctant assistance of the Fed – might decide to spend even more massively to attempt to jump-start the financial system. The end result can be stagflation: slow growth along with higher inflation.
Inflation is the curse to the debt holders. However it is a blessing to the debtors – and Uncle Sam is the chief of them – as they can pay the fixed obligations with increasingly worthless currency.
Are you scared of growing inflation? And want to make sure better profits over inflation from your investments at least risk? Therefore Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) could be the most excellent investment choice for everyone.
Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) are also known as Treasury Inflation Index Securities and Real Return Bonds (RRB). TIPS are ‘safest of the safe’. There is least downside risk on investment. TIPS are long-term fixed income investments protected against fluctuations in the rate of inflation.
But why take advantage of TIPS as your hedge against inflation, rather than a traditional hedge, such as precious metals? You can use both as your hedge against inflation. But always remember, precious metals like gold and silver are less than ideal hedges.
Gold and silver have performed extremely well over the last ten years. Gold has more than quadrupled. Silver has ended still better. But twenty years before that were a total disasters.
But no matter whether inflation is low or high, TIPS will protect you from the risk on your investment. How?
Here are the advantages of buying Inflation-Protected Treasuries:
Regular Interest Payments: Just similar to a regular Treasury bond, TIPS reimburse interest regularly once in six months. However unlike traditional bonds, your principal grows every year by the amount of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI). That is when inflation rate is up; value of TIPS is also increased automatically. In other words, inflation protection is available on both capital and investment. The interest paid once in every six months also grow by the amount of inflation.
Tax Advantages: The interest you receive from TIPS investments are freed from state and local income taxes (but not federal).
TIPS are moreover not as much of unstable when compared to the traditional bonds. The yield on these TIPS funds is at present just about 2.5% (along with whatever inflation is going forward).
Another important reason to consider adding TIPS to your portfolio is the great portfolio diversification benefits they bring. This reduces the overall risk and / or volatility of your portfolio over time. TIPS bond yields are little or negative correlation with the performance of many other traditional investments such as stocks and normal bonds.
Increasing inflation probability are helpful for TIPS returns, but in the short period are negative for the returns of stocks and bonds and vice versa.
TIPS can be purchased in 3 ways:
1. Directly: It is possible to buy TIPS directly from the U.S. Treasury or via a bank, broker, or dealer. You can find out more about buying TIPS directly at http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/res_tips_buy.htm
2. Through the Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities Fund (VIPSX).
3. Through its ETF equivalent – the iShares Barclays TIPS Bond Fund (NYSE: TIP)
Purchasing TIPS through mutual funds offer more flexibility.
There are several advantages of buying TIPS
1. TIPS are very advantageous for long-term investments. 2. TIPS are excellent ways to diversity your portfolio that minimizes whole portfolio risk. 3. TIPS are government guaranteed. 4. TIPS are less volatile than traditional bonds. 5. TIPS are beneficial when inflation rates are projected to go up plus when financial system slows down. 6. Investment on TIPS needs less active investment management thus help both newbies and experienced investors.
Some traders make a complaint that TIPS hasn’t done anything interesting in recent times. This is not correct. We’ve been in the influence of disinflationary forces, not inflationary ones. That will not change next week or next month.
But as the deficit keeps growing that makes people sad, pressure will increase on the government to do “something”. That “something” could be a decision to inflate our way out of this mess, rather than risk the type of deflationary spiral that Japan has suffered over the past 2 decades.
Understand that: The Fed has by now taken interest rates almost to zero. Congress has already tried a huge fiscal stimulus The Federal Reserve has already created trillions out of thin air to mop up worthless securities.
There are chances of rise in inflation if the economy stumbles again which forces to the government to take further action, it possibly will be even further reckless.
A few libertarians and laissez-faire capitalists will refuse to buy TIPS. But other inflation hedges sometimes never work. Hence there is no small risk taking an alternative approach.
In total, TIPS is the only investment that guarantees a profit that exceeds inflation in the years to come. And it is in fact an key component of your portfolio.
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