Inflation Tracking Portfolios

Christopher T. Downing, Francis Longstaff and Michael A. Rierson

No 18135, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We propose a new approach to constructing inflation tracking portfolios. The key to this approach is the insight that asset returns track expected inflation far better than they track current realized inflation. Thus, we can construct portfolios that track next month's inflation much more closely than they track this month's inflation. We show this staggered hedging approach can eliminate nearly 90 percent of the tracking error of more conventional inflation hedging strategies. We also find that long-short positions in equities play a dominant role in the effective hedging of inflation risk over extended horizons. These results suggest that the goal of protecting portfolios against inflation may be more feasible that is commonly believed.

JEL-codes: G11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba and nep-mac
Note: AP
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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