Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities

Experiment: Let’s try out a very short-term TIPS

Posted on September 3, 2023 by Tipswatch

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

Last week I wrote about my recent buying spree of medium- to longer-term Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, combined with some shorter-term nominal Treasurys and bank CDs. My goal is to take advantage of current high real yields to fill my fixed-income ladder out to 2043.

In the feedback I got to that article, several readers asked about the attractiveness of very short-term TIPS, which appear to have above-inflation yields higher than 3.6%. For example, at Friday’s close:

In general, I have recently preferred to use T-bills, bank CDs, and short-term Treasury notes for investments of less than 5 years, and TIPS for investments of 5 years or more more. That’s mainly because short-term nominal rates have been so appealing. But I decided to take a look at CUSIP 912828B25, the TIPS maturing January 15, 2024.

The goal: To set aside $15,000 for a January 2024 purchase of a new 10-year TIPS, which will mature in 2034. At this point, there no TIPS that mature in 2034 and I want to add this one to my investment ladder. I’ll probably buy it at the originating auction on January 18, 2024.

The account: Traditional IRA at Vanguard. Money for this purchase is being withdrawn from my holdings in Vanguard’s Short-Term TIPS ETF (VTIP).

The question: How would investing in CUSIP 912828B25 — maturing Jan 15 2024 — compare with investing in a 17-week T-bill, maturing Jan 2 2024?

So last week, as an experiment, I bought $12,000 par value of CUSIP 912828B25 after doing a quick analysis of the likely results. Nothing is certain, of course. But let’s take a look.

Note that to come up with proceeds of $15,000+ in January, I needed to purchase $12,000 par value of this TIPS. That is because it carries a lofty inflation index of 1.30749, meaning my $12,000 par would actually purchase $15,689.88 of principal. The coupon rate is only 0.625%, so this TIPS sold at a discounted price of 98.73.

The end result was that I paid $15,490.62 for $15,689.88 of principal. That is an immediate gain of 1.29%, or an annualized return of about 3.92% if nothing else happened until maturity. But … two things will happen: 1) The principal balance will continue growing (or possibly falling) along with U.S. inflation from August to November, and 2) there will be a final coupon payment of 0.312% on Jan. 15 based on the ending inflation-adjusted principal.

Also, remember that inflation accruals for TIPS are based on inflation two months earlier. The September inflation accruals have already been set by the 0.19% non-seasonally adjusted inflation reported for July. We already know the inflation index for this TIPS on Sept. 30. What we don’t know are the indexes for October (based on August inflation), November (September), December (October) and half of January (November).

My scenarios look at how this TIPS would perform if non-seasonally adjusted inflation runs at 0.2%, 0.1% or 0.0% for the months of August to November.

Based on this analysis, CUSIP 912828B25 could create a nominal annualized return of nearly 7.5% if inflation runs at 0.2% a month from August to November. That number drops to about 6.4% if inflation runs at 0.1% and 5.1% if inflation remains flat throughout those months.

Compare that to the return of a 17-week Treasury bill sold at auction last week:

The TIPS is the clear winner if inflation runs at a monthly average of 0.1% or 0.2% through November. But the T-bill is the winner if inflation is flat or declines in those months.

Where could this go wrong?

I do think deflation risk is higher for a very short-term TIPS (especially one with a high inflation accrual) than for a longer-term TIPS. The long-term investment has time to make up for a few deflationary months. The short-term investment takes an immediate hit.

In the closing months of the year, non-seasonally adjusted inflation tends to run lower than the official seasonally-adjusted CPI number you see reported each month. Last year, for example, non-seasonal inflation came in at -0.10% in November and -0.31% in December. So it is possible we could see a deflationary month before the end of the year, which would likely make the 17-week T-bill the winner.

I’d say that deflation seems less likely in 2023, with the Cleveland Fed currently forecasting a rate of 0.79% for August. That’s probably an over-shoot, but it definitely indicates August wasn’t a deflationary month.

Conclusion

No one knows where inflation is heading, even a few months into the future. But my judgment was that CUSIP 912828B25 is likely to out-perform the 17-week T-bill, so it was worth an experimental purchase to set aside money in January 2024.

• Now is an ideal time to build a TIPS ladder

• Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

• TIPS in depth: Understand the language

• TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

• Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

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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.

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, Treasury Bills | 22 Comments

Oh no, I’ve become a Treasury market day-trader!

Posted on August 27, 2023 by Tipswatch

Real yields at 2% are too good to pass up. Or am I wrong?

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

OK, it’s a silly headline. I am not really day-trading in the Treasury and fixed-income markets; I’ve only been buying and not selling. But I have dramatically stepped up purchases in the last four months.

All this started in mid-2022, as the Federal Reserve began ratcheting up short-term interest rates. At that time, I worked out a strategy to space out purchases of 13- and 26-week Treasury bills and then roll the investments over, always allowing access to part of the money within 4 weeks. I wrote about that strategy in July 2022 and followed up in August 2022. Those investments are still rolling over, now yielding 5.5%+.

At the same time — mid 2022 — I began liquidating my holdings in Schwab’s U.S. TIPS ETF (SCHP) and very gradually began using that money to buy individual TIPS, both at auction and on the secondary market. Real yields were rising, finally, and by November 2022 had hit decade-plus highs. Unfortunately, that trend reversed in the early months of 2023, with the 10-year TIPS real yield falling from 1.73% on Nov. 3, 2022, to 1.06% on April 4, 2023. So my buying spree slowed down.

Fast forward one month to May 2023 and real yields again began rising, up more than 40 basis points by the end of that month. So I began buying TIPS again, and a bit more aggressively. As it turned out, a new strategy formed: to build a TIPS ladder through the year 2043, with near-equal amounts in each year. To do this, I began liquidating my holdings in Vanguard’s short-term TIPS ETF (VTIP).

I’ve been doing this in a traditional IRA brokerage account at Vanguard, so taxes are not an immediate concern. My strategy combined buying longer-term TIPS (5 years or longer) combined with some nominal investments in the 2- to 3-year range, to prepare for paying future RMDs from this account. Plus I will need investable money in 2024 through 2029 to buy 10-year TIPS in each of those years to complete the ladder. (There are currently no TIPS maturing from 2034 to 2039.)

Here is what I have been doing since May 2023:

My ladder-building strategy is nearly complete, but I am still looking to fill out the years 2040 to 2043 with amounts equal to the earlier years. I am hoping to nail down 2.0%+ real yields for each of those investments in coming weeks. Some days I can find them on the open market; most days I can’t.

On the nominal side, I have been looking for decent yields to provide cash in my early RMD years (2026 and 2027). This IRA account also has a 20% holding in Vanguard’s Total Bond ETF (BND) and 20% in Vanguard’s Wellington Admiral (VWENX). So I have some flexibility for those future RMD withdrawals.

And I should point out that about 10% of my TIPS are old-school purchases that remain in a taxable account at TreasuryDirect. All those, except one, will roll off by 2029.

What is the strategy?

Any investment can look dumb in a few months. I could have been in cash for the last 12 months and just bought all these TIPS at the top of the yield cycle last week! But here’s my advice: When you are putting your money into a very safe investment with a known decent return: Buy without regrets. When you see real yields that are historically attractive, go ahead and invest. As long as you have a plan.

Yields could keep going higher, obviously. Maybe even much higher if you take a dire view of the U.S. borrowing needs in the next few years. Site reader Amit this week provided a link to this video, laying out a very bearish view of the U.S. bond market:

I have no idea who these guys are or anything about their “All-In” podcast, but the speaker, David Friedberg, makes valid points about the potential extreme level of borrowing needed to fund U.S. deficits in the near future. That could lead to higher nominal yields, which would also drag real yields higher, most likely.

So there is always the possibility that buying at today’s decade-high real yields could look bad into the future. But because these investments are Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, if held to maturity they will deliver a return of about 1.8% to 2.0% above inflation. That is a certainty.

These investments are part of an asset allocation in a single account — a traditional IRA — that just needs to keep pace or exceed U.S. inflation for the investments to provide what I need: A stable flow of cash until I reach age 90. So I am buying now to lock in that real return, an opportunity we didn’t have in the decade-long stretch of ultra-low yields.

I know a lot of readers are also adopting this “safe-withdrawal” strategy, first promoted by financial author Allan Roth in his October 2022 article, “The 4% Rule Just Became a Whole Lot Easier.” This strategy, as Roth notes, is only possible when real yields are above 1.7% — the range we are seeing today.

So with that in mind, I have been acting to build this ladder of very safe TIPS investments through 2043. It’s not day-trading, but it has become an obsession, I’ll admit.

• Now is an ideal time to build a TIPS ladder

• Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

• TIPS in depth: Understand the language

• TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

• Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

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Posted in Bank CDs, Inflation, Investing in TIPS, Retirement, Treasury Bills | 54 Comments

30-year TIPS reopening gets real yield of 1.970%, highest in 12 years

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Tipswatch

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

The Treasury’s $8 billion reopening auction of CUSIP 912810TP3 — creating a 29-year, 6-month Treasury Inflation-Protected Security — went off pretty much as expected Thursday, generating a real yield to maturity of 1.970%.

While that result fell just short of a milestone 2.0% real yield, it was higher than where this TIPS was trading most of the morning, at about 1.93% to 1.94%. So investors should be pleased. The real yield of 1.970% was the highest for any 29- to 30-year TIPS auction since February 2011.

This TIPS had its originating auction on Feb. 16, 2023, which generated a real yield of 1.550% and set the coupon rate at 1.50%. So, six months later, real yields for this term have increased 42 basis points. And that means this TIPS sold today at a discount, because of the wide gap between the auctioned real yield (1.970%) and the coupon rate (1.50%).

Investors got an unadjusted price of 89.533532 for $100 of value. The inflation index on the settlement date of Aug. 31 will be 1.02632, pushing the adjusted price to 91.890055, still well below par value.

In essence, investors paid about $91.89 for about $102.63 of principal, and will now collect accruals to principal matching U.S. inflation, along with 1.5% annual interest on the inflation-adjusted principal. Here is how the pricing worked out:

Inflation breakeven rate

With a nominal 30-year Treasury bond trading today at 4.29%, this TIPS gets an inflation breakeven rate of 2.32%, which is in line with the February result but higher than other auctions of this term over the last decade. Investors in this TIPS are betting that inflation will average higher than 2.32% over the next 29 years, 6 months.

As this chart shows, 30-year inflation expectations have been rising since 2020, but have been in a range of 2.2% to 2.4% for the last several months:

Reaction to the auction

The bid-to-cover ratio was 2.42, which indicates reasonable demand. The yield came in fairly close to secondary market trading, so by all indications this auction went off without a hitch.

After strong increases in real yields over the last two weeks, the trend turned slightly downward on Wednesday, with the Treasury’s 30-year real yield estimate falling from 2.07% on Tuesday to close at 1.93% on Wednesday. So today’s end result of 1.97% looks like a positive auction for investors.

Here is the trend in recent TIPS auctions of this term:

• Now is an ideal time to build a TIPS ladder

• Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

• TIPS in depth: Understand the language

• TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

• Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

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Posted in Investing in TIPS | 12 Comments

For some, this week’s 30-year TIPS reopening will be a ‘unique’ opportunity

Posted on August 20, 2023 by Tipswatch

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

One of the year’s most interesting TIPS auctions is coming Thursday, the reopening of CUSIP 912810TP3, creating a 29-year, 6-month Treasury Inflation-Protected Security. Like many of you, I won’t be a buyer at this $8 billion offering. But for some, this TIPS offers a unique investment opportunity.

I say unique, but that could mean uniquely positive (a good possibility) or uniquely awful (there’s always that chance). But either way, this auction will be unique because it is likely to generate a real yield to maturity of close to 2.0%, or higher. No TIPS auction of the 29- to 30-year term has nabbed a real yield that high since February 2011, when a new issue got a real yield of 2.190%. Just two years ago, a similar August auction got a real yield of -0.292%.

CUSIP 912810TP3 trades on the secondary market, and Bloomberg’s U.S. Yields page shows it closed Friday with a real yield of 2.08%. If that holds on Monday, an investor could bypass Thursday’s auction and lock in a 2% yield over inflation. Or … just wait for the auction and get its result.

Definition: A TIPS is an investment that pays a coupon rate well below that of other Treasury investments of the same term. But with a TIPS, the principal balance adjusts each month (usually up, but sometimes down) to match the current U.S. inflation rate. So, the “real yield to maturity” of a TIPS indicates how much an investor will earn above inflation each year until maturity.

Here is the trend in the 30-year real yield going all the way back to February 2010, when the Treasury restarted the 30-year maturity after an 8 1/2-year pause:

The chart show the 30-year real yield only briefly topped 2% during this entire period, in 2010 and early 2011, and again in August 2023.

Some cautions

As I noted, I won’t be a buyer of this TIPS because it will mature when I am 99 1/2 years old. It doesn’t fit into my hold-to-maturity strategy. For others — age 60 or younger — it could fit as the top piece of a multi-year TIPS ladder.

It’s important to recognize the volatility of any 30-year Treasury investment. Even small swings in market real yields can cause substantial changes in the market value of a TIPS. For example, CUSIP 912810TP3 originally auctioned on Feb. 16, 2023, with a real yield of 1.55%, which at the time was the highest auction result in nearly 12 years. That set the coupon rate at 1.5% and the adjusted price was about 98.66 for $100 of value.

Fast forward six months and today that same TIPS has a real yield of 2.08% on the secondary market and its market price has dropped to about 87.34. So this TIPS has lost about 11.5% of its value in only six months. The lesson here is that long-maturity Treasurys are highly volatile; an investor has to recognize that going in. However, if the plan is to hold to maturity and collect 2.0% above inflation, market values aren’t much of a concern. Focus on the plan.

Also, I highly recommend purchasing any long-term TIPS in a tax-deferred account. In a taxable account, yearly inflation accruals of a TIPS (which are added to the principal balance) will be taxed each year as interest income. You won’t recoup that money until the TIPS is sold or matures after 29 1/2 years.

Pricing

On the auction’s settlement date of Aug. 31, CUSIP 912810TP3 will have an inflation index of 1.02632, which means auction investors will be buying about 2.6% additional principal. So an investor purchasing $10,000 par of this TIPS would actually be purchasing $10,263.20 of principal. At Friday’s closing price of 87.34, that principal would cost $8,963.88. Add in about $6.66 of accrued interest and you get to $8,970.54 total cost.

In essence, the investor is paying about $8,964 for $10,263 in principal, plus getting accruals to principal matching inflation for 29 1/2 years, plus collecting a 1.5% coupon along the way. This is a rough estimate based on Friday’s closing market value.

An inflation index of only 1.026 is another reason this long-term TIPS is unique. Because of very high recent inflation, the TIPS maturing in Feb 2052 has an inflation index of 1.094 (9.4% above par) and the one in Feb 2051 is at 1.170 (17% above par). Both of those TIPS also have coupon rates of just 0.125%, the lowest the Treasury will go, compared to 1.5% for CUSIP 912810TP3.

Inflation breakeven rate

With the nominal 30-year bond closing Friday at 4.38%, a 30-year TIPS yielding 2.08% would get an inflation breakeven rate of 2.3%, which is historically high but in line with February’s originating auction. Would I rather invest in a 30-year nominal paying 4.38%? Probably not, but for some this could be a toss up.

Here’s the trend in the 30-year inflation breakeven rate over the last 13 years, showing the range-bound pattern over recent months:

Final thoughts

I found an interesting article this week posted by Bloomberg on Yahoo Finance. The headline was: “Inflation-Protected Bond Bulls’ Pain Thresholds Get Tested.” It told how market strategists from TD Securities made a bet on 5-year real yields declining in the near future, hoping for a quick capital gain.

They targeted an improvement to 1.25%, expecting no further Federal Reserve interest-rate hikes and deceleration in US growth and inflation. Three weeks later, the stop-loss threshold of 2.20% was reached as those assumptions came under assault. …

Still, there’s scope for losses to deepen before support emerges, Dominic Konstam, head of macro strategy at Mizuho Securities, said in a Thursday interview on Bloomberg Television.

“There’s a limit to how far you can sell off,” he said. “Five-year real rates are pretty chunky at the moment, and if they go up another 20, 30 basis points that’s going to be quite attractive I imagine for a lot of investors.”

Why is that interesting? Because savvy market strategists got burned by betting on 5-year TIPS, the least volatile of the TIPS issues. Any bet on 30-year TIPS would have been hugely magnified, and hugely unwise.

I am not a TIPS trader and I don’t theorize on TIPS trades. It is possible that CUSIP 912810TP3 could end up being a big winner for traders, or a big loser. The only way I advise investing in CUSIP 912810TP3 is in a hold-to-maturity strategy, with full awareness of the potential losses (or possible gains) if you need to exit early.

An investor in CUSIP 912810TP3 this week can very likely lock in a 2.0% yield above official U.S. inflation for the next 29 1/2 years. And that is unique.

If you are pondering an investment at Thursday’s auction, keep an eye on Bloomberg’s U.S. Yields page, which updates in real time. It is accurate, but any auction result can bring surprises.

Thursday’s auction will close at 1 pm ET. 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.

• Now is an ideal time to build a TIPS ladder

• Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

• TIPS in depth: Understand the language

• TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

• Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

Here is a history of recent TIPS auctions of the 29- to 30-year term:

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Posted in Inflation, Investing in TIPS, TreasuryDirect | 45 Comments

Now is an ideal time to build a ladder of inflation-protected TIPS

Posted on August 14, 2023 by Tipswatch

It’s rare to see an alignment of attractive yields across all maturities.

By David Enna, Tipswatch.com

For years, I was the “buy at auction” guy when it came to Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities. I’ve written a preview article about every auction since April 2011, so that made sense. I was tracking trends, and figured “I’m on top of this.”

But buying at auction limits you to 5-, 10- and 30-year TIPS maturities, and there are only 12 auctions a year. In the last few years, I began the process of building out a ladder of TIPS investments through the year 2043. I realized “this isn’t working.” At times, real yields weren’t attractive. Other times, they were very attractive. Limiting purchases to one maturity a month didn’t make sense.

Why buy at auction? A TIPS investor can make a purchase of just $100 at TreasuryDirect (or $1,000 at most brokerages) and be guaranteed to get the auction’s high yield, the same yield a million-dollar investor gets. On the secondary market, smaller purchases — usually meaning less than $100,000 — get a small penalty in real yield. A typical rule is that the bigger the investment, the higher the real yield. But the differences aren’t dramatic.

One negative of buying at auction, though, is that you can’t predict exactly the real yield you will receive. The auction sets the yield. A year ago, a string of TIPS auctions got higher real yields than expected. But that has reversed in recent months as demand for TIPS seems to be growing.

Why buy on the secondary market? 1) You can choose your preferred maturity date (which is ideal for building a TIPS ladder), 2) you can see the exact real yield you will receive and 3) you can see the exact cost of the investment before you hit “submit.” At the big brokerages — Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab — secondary Treasury market purchases incur zero commissions.

One negative of the secondary market, as I noted earlier, is the bid-ask spread and sometimes lofty minimum purchase requirements. There will be times you can’t find any seller willing to accept a $10,000 purchase. The solution: Come back the next day and things can change.

Buying on the secondary market can be confusing. Every existing TIPS has a set coupon rate, sells at a discount or premium to par, and has some level of inflation accruals that you will be purchasing in addition to par. All those factors will affect the price you pay, and an investor needs to understand the ins-and-outs.

If you have questions, consult my TIPS In-Depth page for more detailed answers. Also, read this: TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider.

Why now?

This chart, showing TIPS real yields from 2011 to 2023, pretty much tells the story:

I started this chart in 2011 because that was the first year of truly aggressive quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve, which by the end of the year pushed 5- and 10-year real yields deeply negative to inflation. Oddly enough, that session of QE was triggered by a downgrade of U.S. Treasurys by Standard & Poors on Aug. 6, 2011, which set off a severe decline in the U.S. stock market.

Less than a month ago, Fitch Ratings matched the S&P move of 12 years ago, downgrading U.S. debt to AA+ from AAA. While the 2011 move by S&P set off a rally in the bond market (presumably triggered by the Fed) this year’s downgrade has sent both nominal and real yields rising. The Fed can’t and won’t come to the rescue — and in fact is probably fine with higher bond yields.

What’s remarkable about this chart is the fact that real yields across the spectrum of maturities are aligning close to 2%, traditionally an attractive yield above inflation for any Treasury investment. It’s highly unusual to see that sort of alignment for maturities ranging from 5 to 30 years.

Here is the 2023 trend in real yields across popular TIPS maturities:

A ladder-building opportunity

The investment world — which rarely pays attention to TIPS and real yields — is starting to take notice. A Bloomberg article posted on Yahoo Finance this week had the headline: “Lesser-Known Treasury Yield Is on Brink of Historic Breakthrough.” The article noted:

The yield on 30-year inflation-protected Treasuries is on the cusp of exceeding 2% for the first time in more than a decade. … For some, a 2% “real yield” is a screaming buy … For others, uncertainty about whether inflation has peaked — combined with the US government’s growing borrowing need — means that all types of long-term yields may need to be higher still. …

“Our message is get into bonds, both nominal and real,” said Rob Waldner, chief strategist fixed income at Invesco.

Real yields certainly could continue to rise, but in mid-August 2023 an investor can jump into the secondary market and purchase TIPS of most maturities and guarantee a return of 1.8% above inflation, or higher. So a ladder could be assembled in a few days, as financial adviser and author Allan Roth demonstrated in his October 2022 article: “The 4% Rule Just Became a Whole Lot Easier.”

Roth wrote that article as real yields were hitting a high for 2022, but those yields quickly declined later in the year in the wake of several mild inflation reports. Note that today’s real yields have now surpassed the 2022 highs across all maturities:

My TIPS ladder is complete through 2043, but I’ve gotten into the habit of checking the secondary market every day for issues with real yields close to or surpassing 2.0%. I still want to make additions. (FYI, I do my trading on Vanguard’s site — where I have a traditional IRA — but I believe the Fidelity bond platform provides more complete information.)

On Sunday, I found these TIPS with real yields above 2.0%, but the results vary day to day. Some days you will find none. I limited the search to TIPS maturing from 2028 to 2043:

The bond market is closed on Sunday and all of these TIPS had minimum purchase requirements of $50,000 or higher. Normally, but not always, the minimum purchases get lower when bond trading is active. On Vanguard’s site you can click on the “Show more” link to see the potential offerings. In recent months I have had few problems finding potential purchases in the $10,000 range.

Note that these TIPS yielding higher than 2.0% have maturity ranges dating from 2028 to 2043. But for 10-year TIPS, the yields are likely to be around 1.8% at this point, which is still attractive. (The auction of a new 10-year TIPS last month got a real yield of 1.495%, about 30 basis points lower.)

Final thoughts

I am not suggesting pouring all your investable money into a TIPS ladder, all at once. But if you are currently building a TIPS ladder, or want to start one, real yields in August 2023 offer a unique opportunity, with yields high across all maturities.

Remember, though, that real yields could go higher. My suggestion is to determine an asset allocation for TIPS and invest in them with the intention to hold to maturity. If you are happy with the real yield you are getting, don’t worry about future market fluctuations. Or … reserve cash to buy more at a future date.

• Confused by TIPS? Read my Q&A on TIPS

• TIPS in depth: Understand the language

• TIPS on the secondary market: Things to consider

• Upcoming schedule of TIPS auctions

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