5-year TIPS reopening auction gets real yield of 1.433% to solid demand

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

The Treasury’s offering of $24 billion in a reopened 5-year TIPS — CUSIP 91282CPH8 — generated a real yield to maturity of 1.433% to strong demand from investors.

The mild October/November inflation report, issued this morning, could have had some influence on this auction. This TIPS trades on the secondary market and earlier in the day it was trading with a real yield of 1.41%. The auction’s 1.433% resulted from its inflation-breakeven rate slipping lower. In addition, the November inflation index will trigger a 0.46% decline in January inflation accruals, so a higher real yield was justified.

The bid-to-cover ratio of 2.62 was solid, and the auction’s real yield ended up lower than the “when-issued” prediction of 1.4409%. All of that is an indication of positive investor demand.

Definition: The “real yield to maturity” of a TIPS is its yield above official future U.S. inflation, over the term of the TIPS. So a real yield of 1.433% means an investment in this TIPS would provide a return that exceeds U.S. inflation by 1.433% for its remaining term of 4 years, 10 months.

The 5-year real yield has been sliding lower over the last two years as the Federal Reserve signaled future cuts in short-term interest rates. But it has been rising recently, as shown in this chart:

Click on image for larger version.

Pricing

The auction’s unadjusted price was 98.578423, at a discount because the real yield was higher than the existing coupon rate of 1.125%. In addition, this TIPS will have an inflation index of 1.00653 on the settlement date of Dec. 31. With that information, we can calculate the cost of a $10,000 par value investment:

  • Par value. $10,000.
  • Principal purchased as of settlement date. $10,000 x 1.00653 = $10,065.30.
  • Cost of investment. $10,065.30 x 0.98578423 = $9,922.21.
  • + accrued interest of $23.95.

In summary, an investor purchasing $10,000 par value at this auction paid $9,922.21 for $10,065.30 of principal on the settlement date of Dec. 31. From then on, the investor will earn accruals matching future inflation plus an annual coupon rate of 1.125% paid on adjusted principal. The accrued interest will be returned at the first coupon payment on April 15.

Inflation breakeven rate

At the auction’s close, the 5-year Treasury note was trading with a nominal yield of 3.68%, which creates an inflation-breakeven rate of 2.25% for this TIPS, below recent trends. This means the TIPS will out-perform the nominal Treasury if inflation averages more than 2.25% over the next 4 years, 10 months. (Inflation over the last five years has averaged 4.5%.)

Here is the trend in the 5-year inflation breakeven rate over the last two years. Note that today’s result of 2.25% fell a bit below recent trends. The data for this chart was through Tuesday:

Click on image for larger version.

Thoughts

Despite the disruption of the very confusing November inflation report, this auction seemed to go off without a hitch. The resulting real yield of 1.433% was a bit higher than looked likely earlier in the week. Investors did fine.

This is the last TIPS auction of 2025. Next up is a new 10-year TIPS to be auctioned January 22, 2026. This will be the first TIPS in history to mature in 2036.

Here are results of recent TIPS auctions in the 4- to 5-year term. Note that just four years ago, a similar December reopening got a real yield of -1.508%. Things have changed for the better for TIPS investors:

Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

TIPS in depth: Understand the language

TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

TIPS investor: Don’t over-think the threat of deflation

Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

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Follow Tipswatch on X for updates on daily Treasury auctions and real yield trends (when I am not traveling).

Feel free to post comments or questions below. If it is your first-ever comment, it will have to wait for moderation. After that, your comments will automatically appear. Please stay on topic and avoid political tirades. NOTE: Comment threads can only be three responses deep. If you see that you cannot respond, create a new comment and reference the topic.

David Enna is a financial journalist, not a financial adviser. He is not selling or profiting from any investment discussed. I Bonds and TIPS are not “get rich” investments; they are best used for capital preservation and inflation protection. They can be purchased through the Treasury or other providers without fees, commissions or carrying charges. Please do your own research before investing.

Posted in Inflation, Investing in TIPS, TreasuryDirect | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

U.S. annual inflation falls to 2.7% for November, a surprising drop

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

In the messiest inflation report in history, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said today that seasonally-adjusted consumer prices rose just 0.2% over a two-month period (October and November), resulting in an annual rate of 2.7%

This is a two-month report because the BLS didn’t collect inflation data for October during the 43-day government shutdown. Plus, the November report was delayed by eight days. So we have been flying blind since the September report (also delayed) was issued on Oct. 24.

For what it is worth, this is a very encouraging inflation report, with both all-items and core inflation coming in well below expectations. The all-items annual rate fell from 3.0% to 2.7% and core inflation fell from 3.0% to 2.6%. This indicates a strong disinflationary trend. But the BLS did note:

BLS did not collect survey data for October 2025 due to a lapse in appropriations. BLS was unable to retroactively collect these data. For a few indexes, BLS uses nonsurvey data sources instead of survey data to make the index calculations. BLS was able to retroactively acquire most of the nonsurvey data for October. CPI data collection resumed on November 14, 2025.

This November report from the BLS was massively slimmed down and in most cases the bureau did not report month-over-month price changes because it had no data for October. This is surreal. For example, here is the very strange chart of annual CPI rates over the last year:

And here is the BLS’s slimmed-down list of month-over-month changes by category. There has never been an inflation report like this:

Honestly, I have nothing to say except: Let’s wait for December data, to be released on Jan. 13, hopefully on time.

What this means for TIPS and I Bonds

Investors in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities and Series I Savings Bonds are also interested in non-seasonally adjusted inflation, which is used to adjust principal balances on TIPS and set future interest rates for I Bonds. Normally, this is a routine calculation, but not today.

The Treasury was required by federal regulations to create a non-seasonally adjusted CPI index for October, which was used to set inflation accruals for TIPS in December. That October number — resulting from a synthetic calculation averaging inflation over the previous 12 months — was 325.604, which I had suspected was too high.

For November, the BLS set the inflation index at 324.122, a whopping 0.46% less than the October number. So yes, the October number was artificial, and artificially too high.

For TIPS. This November inflation report means that principal balances for all TIPS will fall 0.46% in January, after rising 0.25% in December, which was artificially too high. Here are the new January Inflation Indexes for all TIPS.

For I Bonds. The November report is the second of a six-month string that will set the I Bond’s new variable rate, to be reset on May 1, 2026. So far, two months in, inflation has declined 0.21%.

View historical data on my Inflation and I Bonds page.

It is very common for non-seasonally adjusted CPI to dip into deflation in the last three months of the year, especially in November and December. This trend will turn around in the January to March inflation periods.

What this means for future interest rates

Because this inflation report was so convoluted, it is suspect. I do trust the BLS, but it has been working in a very difficult situation over recent months. The November data could open the way for future rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, but as Bloomberg noted in this morning’s report:

Given the data distortions, investors shouldn’t read too much into this one data print. …

It’s possible that this does reflect a genuine drop off in inflationary pressures, but such a sudden stop, particularly in the more-persistent services components like rent of shelter is very unusual, at least outside of a recession. The upshot is that is looks like we all have to wait until the December data is published next month to verify whether this is a statistical blip or a genuine disinflation.

Inflation analyst Michael Ashton posted a blistering critique of this inflation report this morning. Listen to it here:

Normally, we could look at month-to-month data on food prices, medical care services, apparel, electricity, etc., but all of that is missing in this pared-down November inflation report. My conclusion is that our confusion is justified.

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Donate? This site is free and I plan to keep it that way. Some readers have suggested having a way to contribute. I would welcome donations. Any amount, or skip it, your choice. This is completely optional.

PayPal link / Venmo link

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Follow Tipswatch on X for updates on daily Treasury auctions and real yield trends (when I am not traveling).

Feel free to post comments or questions below. If it is your first-ever comment, it will have to wait for moderation. After that, your comments will automatically appear. Please stay on topic and avoid political tirades. NOTE: Comment threads can only be three responses deep. If you see that you cannot respond, create a new comment and reference the topic.

David Enna is a financial journalist, not a financial adviser. He is not selling or profiting from any investment discussed. I Bonds and TIPS are not “get rich” investments; they are best used for capital preservation and inflation protection. They can be purchased through the Treasury or other providers without fees, commissions or carrying charges. Please do your own research before investing.

Posted in Federal Reserve, I Bond, Inflation, Investing in TIPS, Savings Bond | Tagged , , , , , , | 24 Comments

This week’s 5-year TIPS auction still looks solid

AI generated photo. Source: Google Gemini.

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

As I noted in a post last week, the Federal Reserve’s recent moves to lower short-term interest rates haven’t caused real yields to decline. Instead, they have been rising.

Normally, the 5-year real yield will track lower or higher to match the Federal Reserve’s rate decisions. The 5-year is the shortest term of auctioned TIPS and so its yield generally follows along with the Fed’s December decisions on short-term rates. But not this year. The 5-year real yield has increased 7 basis points since December 1 and 3 basis points since the Fed’s announcement on December 10.

All of this is leading up to Thursday’s offering of $24 billion in a reopened 5-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Security – CUSIP 91282CPH8 – creating a 4-year, 10-month TIPS. This TIPS has a coupon rate of 1.125%, set at the originating auction on Oct. 23, 2025, which generated a real yield to maturity of 1.182%.

CUSIP 91282CPH8 trades on the secondary market, where it closed Friday with a real yield of 1.40% and a price of 98.73. The price is discounted because the current real yield is higher than the coupon rate of 1.125%.

It’s important to point out that the real yield of this TIPS has increased 22 basis points in two months, during a time the Federal Reserve was cutting short-term interest rates by 50 basis points. That’s remarkable.

Definition: The “real yield to maturity” of a TIPS is its yield above official future U.S. inflation over the term of the TIPS. So a real yield of 1.40% means an investment in this TIPS would provide a return that exceeds U.S. inflation by 1.40% for 4 years, 10 months.

Is a real yield of 1.40% attractive? Historically, yes, but it is well below the high of about 2.51% set in October 2023. Here is the trend in the 5-year real yield over the last 15 years:

Click on image for larger version.

Pricing

CUSIP 91282CPH8 closed Friday with a price of 98.73, and it will carry an inflation index of 1.00653 on the settlement date of Dec. 31. With that information, we can estimate the cost of a $10,000 par value investment at Thursday’s auction.

  • Par value. $10,000.
  • Principal purchased on settlement date. $10,000 x 1.00653 =$10,065.30
  • Cost of investment. $10,065.30 x 0.9873 = $9,937.47
  • + accrued interest of about $23.95.

In summary, under current market conditions, on the settlement date the investor would pay about $9,937 for about $10,065 in principal. From then on, the investor would earn accruals matching U.S. inflation, plus a coupon rate of 1.125% on inflation-adjusted principal for 4 years, 10 months.

This is an estimate. The market pricing will change by Thursday, but this can give investors an idea of the likely outcome.

Inflation breakeven rate

With the 5-year Treasury note closing Friday with a nominal yield of 3.75%, this TIPS currently has an inflation breakeven rate of 2.35%, a bit below recent auctions of this term. It means this TIPS will outperform the nominal Treasury if inflation averages more than 2.35% over the next 4 years, 10 months. (I’d take that bet.)

Note, however, that non-seasonally adjusted inflation could be near zero or slightly negative for November and December. This is the normal pattern for non-seasonally adjusted inflation. Don’t be alarmed if you see that.

Here is the trend in the 5-year inflation breakeven rate over the last 15 years, showing the strong surge higher in 2022 and more recently, a slight dip:

Click on image for larger version.

Thoughts

One of the positives about a 5-year TIPS is: the term is short, and this auction’s 4-year, 10-month term is the shortest of any TIPS auction. Because of that short term, holding to maturity is easier, and this TIPS should be a good investment if held to maturity.

At the current real yield of 1.40%, it will outperform the U.S. Series I Savings Bond, which currently has a fixed rate of 0.9%. It also looks competitive versus best-in-nation 5-year bank CDs, currently yielding around 4.0%, which would push the breakeven rate up to 2.60%. The TIPS gets the advantage of protection against a surge in inflation.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some rate volatility next week, so real yields could be rising or falling. CUSIP 91282CPH8 can also be purchased at any time on the secondary market.

The advantage of buying at auction, especially through TreasuryDirect, is that even small-lot purchases will get the auction’s high yield. The advantage of the secondary market is that you can see exactly the price and real yield you will be receiving. The negative is that you may face a small bid-ask spread. Most of the time, it doesn’t make a huge difference, but if you see a real yield you like, know that you can probably get it on the secondary market without dealing with the auction’s uncertainty.

Investors can track the market shifts for this TIPS in real time on Bloomberg’s Current Yields page. And here is advice for secondary market investors.

A couple of side notes about this auction:

  • The size of $24 billion is the largest in history for a 5-year TIPS reopening, up from $23 billion at the April reopening and $22 billion last December.
  • The inflation index of 1.00653 includes the result of the “synthetic” inflation calculation for October 2025. More on that here. Not a huge deal, but that number is almost certainly slightly off target. This will autocorrect as future inflation reports are issued, including the November report coming on Dec. 18.
  • For the first time I know of, this auction will close just a few hours after the release of the November inflation report, which was delayed from Dec. 10. That’s never happened before. The results of that report could influence the auction result.

This TIPS auction closes Thursday at 1 p.m. EST. Non-competitive bids at TreasuryDirect must be placed by noon Thursday. If you are putting an order in through a brokerage, make sure to place your order Wednesday or very early Thursday, because brokers cut off auction orders before the noon deadline.

I will be reporting the auction results soon after the auction’s close at 1 p.m. and of course I will be writing about the November inflation report, to be issued on the same day at 8:30 a.m. EST. Here are results for recent auctions of this 4- to 5-year term:

Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

TIPS in depth: Understand the language

TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

TIPS investor: Don’t over-think the threat of deflation

Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

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Donate? This site is free and I plan to keep it that way. Some readers have suggested having a way to contribute. I would welcome donations. Any amount, or skip it, your choice. This is completely optional.

PayPal link / Venmo link

—————————

Follow Tipswatch on X for updates on daily Treasury auctions and real yield trends (when I am not traveling).

Feel free to post comments or questions below. If it is your first-ever comment, it will have to wait for moderation. After that, your comments will automatically appear. Please stay on topic and avoid political tirades. NOTE: Comment threads can only be three responses deep. If you see that you cannot respond, create a new comment and reference the topic.

David Enna is a financial journalist, not a financial adviser. He is not selling or profiting from any investment discussed. I Bonds and TIPS are not “get rich” investments; they are best used for capital preservation and inflation protection. They can be purchased through the Treasury or other providers without fees, commissions or carrying charges. Please do your own research before investing.

Posted in Bank CDs, I Bond, Inflation, Investing in TIPS, TreasuryDirect | Tagged , | 14 Comments

The bond market isn’t buying the Fed’s rate cuts

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

As the Federal Reserve continues on a path toward lower short-term interest rates, the bond market isn’t tagging along. Instead, yields on medium- and longer-term Treasurys have been increasing, not falling.

The Fed began its latest phase of rate-cutting on Sept. 17, 2025, and has now cut the federal funds rate by 75 basis points over the last four months. That has brought short-term rates down, but has had no effect in lowering longer-term rates:

Click on image for larger version.

Update: In a Thursday auction, one day after the Fed rate cut, the 4-week T-bill got an investment rate of 3.670%, down from 3.742% last week. That 3.67% is probably close to the new short-term T-bill benchmark. On the same day, a reopening auction of a 30-year Treasury bond got a high yield of 4.773%, up from 4.694% last month.

Here is a view of 10-year real and nominal Treasury yields over the last three years, during a time of 1) Fed rate increases, 2) then stability, 3) then cuts. Since September, both real and nominal 10-year real yields have remained relatively stable, even as the Federal Reserve was cutting short-term rates.

And this final chart shows that both 10-year nominal and real yields are up strongly since the Fed ended its rate-increasing cycle in mid-2023. The Federal Funds rate has fallen 150 basis points since May 2023, but both real and nominal 10-year yields are up, fairly dramatically.

Why is this important?

The market yield on the 10-year Treasury note is a key benchmark in the U.S. economy, forming the basis for mortgage rates and business loans. Normally, when the Fed cuts short-term rates, you’d expect to see longer-term yields move in that direction. That isn’t happening in 2025.

Why? One key reason is that the bond market sees U.S. deficits continuing to rise, possibly dramatically, over the next five years or longer. It’s a long-term trend, and it is escalating. When President Trump took office on Jan. 20, the U.S. government debt stood at $36.22 trillion. As of last week, that number was $38.39 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury’s “Debt to the Penny” reports.

Another factor is inflation expectations. The Federal Reserve yesterday projected PCE inflation (which generally runs lower than headline CPI) to continue at 2.5% through 2026 before falling to 2.1% in 2027 and 2.0% in 2028. That looks like an overly optimistic forecast to me and the bond market seems to agree. The 5-year inflation breakeven rate closed Wednesday at 2.32%.

From a Bloomberg report on Dec. 7:

The bond market’s reaction to the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate cuts has been highly unusual. By some measures, a disconnect like this, with Treasury yields climbing as the central bank lowers rates, hasn’t been seen since the 1990s. …

But one thing is clear: the bond market isn’t buying President Donald Trump’s idea that faster rate cuts will send bond yields sliding down and, in turn, slash the rates on mortgages, credit cards and other types of loans.

Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, told Bloomberg the higher yields are a signal that bond traders are worried the Fed is cutting rates even as inflation remains stubbornly above its 2% target and the economy keeps defying recession fears.

“The market is really concerned about the policy,” said Bianco. “The concern is that the Fed has gone too far.” If the Fed continues to cut rates, he said, mortgage rates will go “vertical.”

And of course there is the issue of the Fed’s independence, which hangs over the bond market. Chairman Jay Powell will be gone in May, most likely replaced by Trump’s chief economist, Kevin Hassett, who has advocated for Trump’s policies on tariffs and lower interest rates. At this point, it looks like the Fed’s Open Market Committee is deeply divided over future rate-setting. That looks likely to continue.

The bond market is sending a message: The Fed can control short-term interest rates, but the market determines longer-term rates, unless the Fed launches another round of aggressive quantitative easing. (Opinion: that must not happen.)

So I would expect mid- to longer-term real and nominal yields to remain attractive into 2026, even as yields on savings accounts and money markets begin to fall.

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Donate? This site is free and I plan to keep it that way. Some readers have suggested having a way to contribute. I would welcome donations. Any amount, or skip it, your choice. This is completely optional.

PayPal link / Venmo link

—————————

Follow Tipswatch on X for updates on daily Treasury auctions and real yield trends (when I am not traveling).

Feel free to post comments or questions below. If it is your first-ever comment, it will have to wait for moderation. After that, your comments will automatically appear. Please stay on topic and avoid political tirades. NOTE: Comment threads can only be three responses deep. If you see that you cannot respond, create a new comment and reference the topic.

David Enna is a financial journalist, not a financial adviser. He is not selling or profiting from any investment discussed. I Bonds and TIPS are not “get rich” investments; they are best used for capital preservation and inflation protection. They can be purchased through the Treasury or other providers without fees, commissions or carrying charges. Please do your own research before investing.

Posted in Cash alternatives, Federal Reserve, Inflation, Investing in TIPS, Tariffs, Treasury Bills | Tagged , , , , | 30 Comments

Morningstar says VTIP is having a ‘lousy’ year. It’s not true.

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

Morningstar.com published an article last week singling out three of its favorite ETFs as having “a lousy 2025.” I was surprised to see Vanguard’s Short-term Inflation-Protected Securities ETF (VTIP) listed as one of the three.

The three ETFs were:

  • iShares MSCI USA Quality Factor ETF (QUAL)
  • Avantis US Small Cap Value ETF (AVUV)
  • Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected Securities ETF (VTIP)

I don’t know anything about the first two ETFs, except that they make bets in the equities market. QUAL (expense ratio of 0.15%) aims for large-cap winners, with top three holdings of Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia. AVUV (expense ratio 0.25%) is a play on small-cap value, with top holdings of Macy’s, Five Below and Air Lease Corp.

VTIP (expense ratio of 0.03%) is an entirely different kind of investment, very low risk with only 10 holdings, concentrated on TIPS of maturities up to five years. Its effective duration is 2.5 years, much lower than full-spectrum TIPS ETFs like TIP (6.5 years) and SCHP (6.6 years).

Vanguard describes the fund this way:

Designed to generate returns more closely correlated with realized inflation over the near term, and to offer investors the potential for less volatility of returns relative to a longer-duration TIPS fund.

Given its shorter duration, the fund can be expected to have less real interest rate risk, but also lower total returns relative to a longer-duration TIPS fund.

The key point is that VTIP is a low-volatility fund with near-zero credit risk and lower interest-rate risk. By design, it will perform “better than average” during a bond-market downturn, and “worse than average” when bonds are booming. Overall, as Vanguard notes, it should come close to tracking trends in U.S. inflation.

I have invested in VTIP in the past, but no longer have any holdings in this ETF or any other TIPS ETF.

Was 2025 a lousy year for VTIP?

No, it was not, and this is the reason I was surprised by the Morningstar article. Year to date, VTIP has had a total return of 6.08%, its highest return in a decade. That’s well above the U.S. inflation rate of 3.1%. Mission accomplished.

Here is a chart comparing VTIP’s performance versus well-known bond ETFs over the last five years:

Click on image for larger version.

It is worth noting that none of these ETFs produced a return exceeding the average rate of U.S. inflation over the last 5 years, at 4.6%. In VTIP’s case, the under-performance reflects the fact that the 5-year real yield increased from -1.20% in October 2020 to 1.38% today, a phenomenal 258 basis points. That created a drag on performance, even for this low-volatility fund, which still returned 3.68% on average over that period.

But let’s look at 2025. It’s true that VTIP’s 2025 return of 6.08% slightly lags the other bond funds with longer durations, which have benefited from falling interest rates. But VTIP does that with a much less risky portfolio, as shown in returns for 2022, a disastrous year for the bond market.

From the Morningstar article:

The ETF’s low level of credit and duration risk was not rewarded during recent markets. Yield had been trending down for most of 2025, and credit spreads plunged after the initial bust in the first quarter, favoring riskier bonds over the ETF’s high-quality, low-duration portfolio.

And then it adds:

But this ETF has and should continue to offer protection when it matters, during stress markets. … Thanks to its downside protection in major market shocks, the ETF beat its category average since its 2012 inception through October 2025, with lower volatility and better risk-adjusted return.

Thoughts

Any investor in VTIP should be quite happy with its 6.08% return year to date. This is a low-risk, low-volatility fund that is designed to closely track trends in U.S. inflation. It is not making bets in the bond market, like you would see in a more-risky high-yield corporate fund. It has had only one year (2022) of negative total returns over the last decade.

VTIP has a stellar expense ratio of 0.03% and a long history of good performance. I like this fund and it is the one I recommend for investors looking for a simpler way to invest in TIPS.

VTIP isn’t designed to “out-perform.” It is designed to “perform,” and it has performed well so far in 2025.

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Donate? This site is free and I plan to keep it that way. Some readers have suggested having a way to contribute. I would welcome donations. Any amount, or skip it, your choice. This is completely optional.

PayPal link / Venmo link

—————————

Follow Tipswatch on X for updates on daily Treasury auctions and real yield trends (when I am not traveling).

Feel free to post comments or questions below. If it is your first-ever comment, it will have to wait for moderation. After that, your comments will automatically appear. Please stay on topic and avoid political tirades. NOTE: Comment threads can only be three responses deep. If you see that you cannot respond, create a new comment and reference the topic.

David Enna is a financial journalist, not a financial adviser. He is not selling or profiting from any investment discussed. I Bonds and TIPS are not “get rich” investments; they are best used for capital preservation and inflation protection. They can be purchased through the Treasury or other providers without fees, commissions or carrying charges. Please do your own research before investing.

Posted in ETFs, Inflation, Investing in TIPS | Tagged , , | 30 Comments