Inflation continues to batter American consumers left and right. And, despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes this year, the inflation fire continues to run hot.

Recently, the government reported that consumer prices rose 8.2% in September, versus year ago levels, hitting another 40-year high.

For investors, this means more stock market volatility and also raises the stakes for the Fed going forward. Expect to see large rate hikes continue, which could lead to further economic slowing and recession in early 2023.

What Determines the Inflation Rate?

The government tracks a Consumer Price Index basket of 80,000 items. While the official CPI rate is up 8.2% year-over year, many of the items you buy everyday have jumped significantly more. Take a look at the data below – which includes just a selected few items.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Inflation data is going in the wrong direction. We continue to live in extraordinary times.

Inflation and Gold

If you are wondering what you can do, consider the history that gold has as a store of value. While your dollar’s purchasing power is declining as inflation rises, gold has been relied upon for a store of value for 5,000 years.

As the economy grinds slower under the weight of heavy-handed Fed rate hikes, weak economic growth and high inflation forecasts are dominating the macro landscape.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase, expects the U.S. economy to fall into a recession over the next six to nine months. What’s more? Dimon also warned that investors should not be surprised if the S&P 500 drops another 20%.

Is Your Portfolio Prepared for What May Lie Ahead?

It’s time to take another look at gold.

Gold is the best stagflation performer since 1973 with a 12.8% annualized return, according to a Gold Hub investment update.

“Real assets do well during stagflation, with commodities both fueling and feeding off inflation, while gold has tended to benefit from the elevated risk environment, rising inflation, and a lowering of real interest rates. Gold’s strong returns come despite a stronger US dollar typically seen during stagflation,” Gold Hub said.

That’s a track record you can count on in these uncertain times. Do you own enough precious metals?

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Gold is just as natural as the water and sunlight we often associate with clean tech. Yet, few people think of gold when considering the future of green energy solutions. Perhaps this is because its role in these innovations is not well publicized.

Here, we breakdown three ways in which gold will be crucial to achieving the clean technology revolution necessary to help slow global climate change.

Electricity-Producing Fuel Cells

Electricity-producing fuel cells have major implications for environmentally safe solutions because their only byproduct is water. The result is a dramatic reduction in the toxins many current technologies put into the atmosphere today. Gold serves a crucial role in the manufacturing of these fuel cells because it can be used as a catalyst during production. Importantly, gold can fulfill this role at low temperatures.

As global economies produce these fuel cells in greater numbers there will be an increasing demand for gold. Consider that the global fuel cell market is forecasted to reach $11.9 billion within the next six years. Fulfilling that level of demand will require an enormous amount of gold which is likely to increase the price of the metal.

Synthetic Polymers

Nearly every building today contains some amount of poly vinyl chloride (PVC), which is the third most widely produced synthetic polymer.

The problem with PVC is that the manufacturing process is harmful to the environment. One of the first steps requires the creation of vinyl chloride monomer which cannot be fabricated without a catalyst. These catalysts are often mercury-based. As a result, there is a greater likelihood of this harmful toxin making its way into our environment when it is discarded after the manufacturing process.

This outcome has serious repercussions because mercury has long been destructive to wildlife, especially fish. Additionally, mercury is toxic to the brain and spinal cord making its disposal particularly dangerous.

Fortunately, gold might change this characteristic of PVC manufacturing. Like electricity-producing fuel cells, gold catalyst processes have emerged which means that factories may be able to dramatically reduce their use of mercury or abandon it completely. In fact, the World Gold Council reports, “This breakthrough provides an opportunity for VCM producers to remove a highly toxic material from their process in a cost-effective manner. Depending on uptake, this application could generate total demand in the region of 1-5 tonnes of gold.”

Energy Producing Nanoparticles

Many traditional solar panels are lacking in efficiency. The reason: the panels are designed to include a web of wiring placed near the surface. This creates a problem because those wires block up to 10% of sunlight that would otherwise be used to provide electrical power.

As a result, researchers have been exploring new designs which eliminate these webs. One such concept uses a thin film of gold on a silicone sheet. This film allows more light to penetrate the panel. Some estimate that this innovation can offer up to a 20% boost in efficiency. Therefore, solar-powered technologies will likely boost gold demand. Gold has other uses in these modern panels like the electrodes used to establish electrical contact with non-metallic components.

Gold is more than an investment in a commodity. It is also an investment in the future.

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Americans face rising prices, shortages of everyday goods, falling stock and bond prices and rising interest rates. Today, the Federal Reserve moved with it’s fifth super-sized interest rate hike of the year to try to tamp down the scorching hot 40-year high inflation that is eroding your wealth.

The Fed hiked its benchmark rate by 0.75 basis points to 3 – 3.25%. Gold moved slightly higher with the news, which was largely expected and priced into the markets

The recent August inflation reading confirmed what economists have long feared – inflation is broad, sticky and still rising. That means the Federal Reserve must continue to aggressively hike interest rates this year – furthering weakening the economy, as the central bank tries to choke off consumer demand for goods and services.

Higher Fed interest rates are actually designed to slow down economic growth. Higher rates mean borrowing to buy a house, a car, or even a new washer or dryer is more expensive. The Fed is deliberately trying to slow the economy.

Can the Fed hit the brakes on economic growth to bring inflation down without triggering a recession? History is not on the central bank’s side.

Yet, this bad economic dream is far from over.

Deutsche Bank economists recently said that a Fed interest rate near 5% could be needed to see meaningful improvement in inflation. Last week, billionaire investor and Bridgewater Associates Ray Dalio warned that a 4.5% fed funds rate could mean a 20% drop in equity prices.

Are you positioned for another big leg down in the stock market?

It is indeed enough to make you want to take a long nap, like our friend Rip Van Winkle, who slept for 20 years, according to the Washington Irving short story. We don’t have the luxury of sleeping through this unprecedented economic period. Fortunately, there are actions you can take today to protect and preserve your wealth in these unsettled economic times and that includes increasing your allocation to gold.

Gold is a proven portfolio diversifier, hedge against inflation and asset that is non-correlated to the stock market. Increasing your allocation to physical gold today is a strategic method to protect your portfolio from further dislocation and declines as the Fed continues its aggressive interest rate hike campaign. If you’d like a personalized portfolio consultation to review your current portfolio and how gold ownership can help you achieve your long-term financial goals, call a Blanchard portfolio manager today.

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Earlier this year, legendary billionaire investor Charlie Munger – Warren Buffet’s right hand man – predicted the value of the fiat U.S. dollar would crash to zero within a century.

Could this happen? Consider this.

President Nixon severed the U.S. dollar’s convertibility to gold in 1971. That means the U.S. dollar in its current fiat form is only 51 years old.

It was around 550 BC that societies around the globe first used gold as currency. You do the math.

Fiat currency simply means that our U.S. dollar is not backed by a precious metal, or “hard money.” Instead, our U.S. dollar is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

In 1971, the U.S. national debt was $398 billion. Today? The U.S. national debt has exploded to $30.9 trillion. That’s a lot of debt associated with our government and has a direct impact on the future value of the U.S. dollar.

Tie in the 40-year record-high inflation hitting Americans hard right now and you have a recipe for dollar disaster.  “Inflation is a very serious subject, you could argue it is the way democracies die,” Munger told Yahoo Finance earlier this year, citing examples from the Roman Republic to Adolf Hitler to Latin America.

U.S. inflation is clearly not transitory as the Federal Reserve said for months as they dragged their heels on attacking the problem. Now, they are well behind the curve as inflation is out-of-control and “sticky” as economists like to say. Indeed, U.S. consumer inflation registered another red-hot 8.3% reading in August. “If you look at the underlying trend — I look at labor costs and rent increases — they both are pointing in the wrong direction and going up at hefty paces,” Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University and president of SS Economics, told CNN Business.

What does billionaire Charlie Munger think of all this? “I think the safe assumption for an investor is that over the next hundred years, the currency [U.S. dollar] is going to zero,” he told Yahoo Finance. “That is my working hypothesis.”

For investors’ today facing unprecedented market and economic conditions – decade high inflation, rising interest rates, slowing economy growth and a bear market in stocks – the risk/reward favors additional diversification into hard money or tangible assets like physical gold.

For thousands of years, gold has served as a medium of exchange, store of value and wealth preservation tool. While your dollar-based assets could crash as inflation and government debt eat away at the fiat currencies feasibility in the years ahead, gold will continue to grow in value.

Since 1971, gold has increased in value by 5,785% percent. One of the best things about gold? Gold has no counter-party risk. There is no bank, brokerage, government that is on the other side of your trade when you buy gold. Owning gold gives you the peace of mind of true ownership of a physical hard currency that can be exchanged for paper currency in any country in the world. You never have to worry that a bankruptcy or government default will cause your gold’s worth to go to zero – unlike a stock, a bond, or even the U.S. dollar.

Do you own enough gold? The time may be ripe to trade your dollars for gold.

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Retirement, like a mirage on the horizon, is an oasis many will never drink from.

More Americans are learning that retirement is less feasible than they thought. There are many causes of this evaporating dream.

Consider that wages have stagnated for over thirty years. This is likely due, in part, to the fact that almost half of Americans of working age (18-64) earn a median annual wage of less than $20,000 according to research compiled by Brookings Institute.

Additional research from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) adds dimension to this picture. Researchers learned that the portion of all US families with retirement savings has decreased since the onset of the Great Recession. The EPI’s conclusion is definitive and clear: “most families—even those approaching retirement—have little or no retirement savings.”

This trend comes at a time when the cost of living is rising considerably. While inflation has moderated slightly in recent weeks, it is clear that many resources remain lower than they did before the pandemic. The result is elevated costs associated with everyday necessities, particularly gas and food. Meanwhile, retirees face other rising costs, like healthcare, which increase as individuals reach old age. Research from Fidelity estimates that a 65-year-old couple in the US should expect to pay $275,000 in out-of-pocket healthcare costs post retirement.

These headwinds have compounded the difficulties brought on by the Great Recession which resulted in falling 401K plan participation, and the long-term erosion of pension plans.

The confluence of these factors means that “retirement inequality is greater than income inequality even in peak earning years,” according to the EPI study. Moreover, this problem comes at a time when a record number of Americans are entering retirement. The pandemic likely accelerated Boomer’s movement into their golden years. Approximately six months after the start of the pandemic, 40% of all baby boomers were retired and the total number of boomers entering retirement each year since has increased.

Investors facing retirement are considering ways in which they might make up the shortfall through a better asset allocation in their portfolios. Gold is one answer for three reasons.

First, gold offers the possibility for capital appreciation that is not subject to the whims of the equity and bond market. This independence is important, as more equities begin to rise in fall in unison which undermines the intent of a diversified mix of holdings.

Second, gold offers freedom from counterparty risk which is the risk that another party connected to one’s investment fails to act in the investor’s best interest. Unfortunately, investors experienced the outcome of this risk during fiascos like the Enron scandal and the subprime housing collapse.

Third, gold has a history of providing a safe haven during periods of equity market turmoil. As 2022 moves to a close many investors have seen their savings shrink as the broader markets have succumbed to the effects of the Ukraine war, inflation, and economic uncertainty surrounding the prospect of a recession.

The looming retirement crises will not be solved by a single solution. But savvy investors can make moves today that provide a degree of protection.

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