I turned on CNBC in the middle of the day to look at the stock prices crawling across the screen below the talking heads.  I happened to hear the discussion, as well.

The topic was gold as an inflation hedge.  The back and forth sounded kind of like one of those Time Life infomercials selling the Greatest Hits of the (1960s, 1970s…) …or maybe the commercials that let you know you can get the same auto insurance as Snoop Dogg even if you have a bad driving record.

Even though the participants didn’t know much about gold (what a surprise), I find their unstated premise very interesting.  What do we do as investors if inflation comes back?

no sign of garden variety inflation 

The standard analysis of inflation is that it arises in an advanced economy during an employment boom when money/fiscal conditions are too loose.  Government policy stimulates firms to expand.  But there are no more unemployed workers.  So companies poach from each other, offering ever higher wages to lure workers from rivals.  Not the case, at least right now, in the US, where the administration’s white racism and anti-science stance have leading firms, if anything, figuring out how to leave.

developing world variety, though…

This is the situation where a corrupt or inept government favors politically powerful industries of the past, borrows heavily–especially from foreigners–and shows itself unwilling or unable to repay what it owes.  The local currency begins to slip as this picture becomes clearer–evidenced by government budget deficits–and foreign investors head start to pull their money out.  This raises the price of imported goods and starts an inflationary spiral.

Trump has recently invited this framing of the US situation by hinting that he will punish China by defaulting on a portion of the $1 trillion+ Beijing has lent to Washington.  He also seems to have suggested the possibility of a more general default  during his presidential campaign.

In the case of the US, past bouts of inflation have been fueled by domestic fixed income investors fleeing Treasuries much faster than foreigners.  My guess is that this would already be happening, except for two factors:

–the gigantic amount of debt the Fed is buying, and

–there’s no obvious other place to go.  Japan is a basket case, the EU isn’t much better, Brexit dysfunction rules the UK out and the renminbi isn’t a fully convertible currency.

guarding against inflation

For currency-induced inflation, the winning equity stance is to have revenues in the strong currencies and costs in the weak.  For wage-cost inflation, the economic remedy is to tighten government policy, that is, raise interest rates.  That hurts all financial instruments.  Least badly hurt would be traditional defensives.