Investing when you anticipate inflation or during inflation could be challenging, but modifying your investing to account for inflation is crucial to your financial success. Inflation is the hidden tax, and you should consider the effects of inflation or deflation on your investments.
When you consider the effects of inflation, you then must assess the time-horizon for your investments. Whenever you’re evaluating an investment, you must consider the rate of present and projected inflation, the time-horizon with the investment, and your exit strategies for the investment.
According to Wikipedia “inflation is a rise within the general level of costs of goods and solutions in an economy over a time period.” Also, “Economists usually agree that substantial rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by an excessive growth with the cash supply.” Within the U.S. the cash provide increases once the government prints more money, and can also be how the government can pay its own debt with less expensive dollars. When the currency was according to gold, this was not possible, simply because you couldn’t produce gold out of thin air, such as the government does by printing Federal Reserve Notes when required.
This results in the very first technique for investing during inflation: that is, investing in gold. This technique might be regarded as more of “insurance” against inflation, instead of investing. I consider this a much more longer term strategy. The same strategy could be applied to silver, a more volatile commodity. In the April 27, 2011 post on my weblog “US Dollar, Silver, Inflation and More”, you are able to see the S&P measured in the value of silver.
Another strategy to invest throughout inflation is to invest in other stable currencies. You are able to invest directly in specific country currencies or you can invest in a group of currencies. The Swiss franc has been a relatively stable currency and has performed well.
Do your research initial. I believe it is more important now, than ever, to acquire a global investing perspective. The economic climate with the world is constantly changing, and only investing in your personal economic climate will limit your choices and overall success.
Real estate historically has been a good hedge against inflation, as costs go up usually so do rents. In commercial real estate, you might have to wait a few years to make lease changes, while these adjustments could be made more frequently in residential real estate, usually annually. Again, the time-horizon comes into play. You are able to combine investing in real estate with the quality of a foreign currency by investing in foreign real estate.
You should be careful of countries whose currency is tied towards the US dollar. You can also use IRA cash for this type of investing by setting up a self-directed IRA/ I have done this and purchased commercial properties in Canada.
Caution should be used when considering the government’s statistics on inflation. For example, the government Consumer Price Index (CPI) data has been manipulated by changing how it is calculated (what is included within the index). If the CPI were calculated exactly the same way as in 1980, for example, the data are dramatically different (shadowstats website charts these data). It is likely that the inflation you are experiencing is much greater than that indicated within the CPI.
