And with more interest rate cuts likely coming and higher tariffs still on the table, I expect inflation to accelerate.

Fortunately, there’s an asset class that has absolutely crushed inflation every decade for nearly a century. And I bet you’ll be surprised when you find out what it is.

It is not gold.

Gold has kept up with inflation over the very long term, but that’s about it. An ounce of gold essentially buys the same amount of goods and services today as it did a millennium or two ago.

The big inflation beater is small cap stocks.

You can see from the chart above that small caps strongly outpaced inflation in every decade. The smallest margin was 4.7% in the 1980s.

On average, small caps returned 13% annually, while inflation averaged 3.2% – meaning small caps increased an investor’s buying power by an astounding 10% per year.

That doesn’t just mean you could have had 10% more money each year. It means you could have bought 10% more goods and services each year – no matter how high prices rose during that year.

To make it clear just how profound this is, let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re a golfer and the average round of golf costs you $100. You have a budget of $1,000 per year for golf (not including equipment). That means you can play 10 times per year.

Now imagine that, due to inflation, a round of golf will cost you $105 next year. If your budget doesn’t increase, you’re down to playing nine times per year. And in a few years, if inflation remains constant, that will decline to eight times.

But now suppose that you added the average yearly return (13%) that small caps have delivered to your golf budget, increasing it from $1,000 to $1,130. Not only would you be able to afford the annual bump in greens fees, but you’d also be able to increase the number of times you can hit the links to 11 per year. You’d be able to play 12 times the following year… and so on.

Small caps get a bad rap. Many investors think they’re super risky. And certain ones are. There are plenty of garbage companies out there.

But as an asset class, small caps have a fantastic track record that goes back decades. And surprisingly, they help investors increase their buying power even during periods of high inflation.

Going forward, it will be important to have small caps in your portfolio. With large caps trading at historically high valuations (and with more rate cuts by the Fed on the horizon), they are likely to be the top performers in the near term.

Many people think of small caps as speculative investments. But they have proven over nearly 100 years to play a vital role in allowing investors to beat inflation and increase their buying power.

The post The Big Inflation Beater appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared an article by Monument Traders Alliance’s Bryan Bottarelli about how September’s Fed meeting could be the biggest in decades.

Now that the meeting has passed, I’ve invited Bryan back to break down how he’s preparing for any potential volatility over the next few months.

– James Ogletree, Senior Managing Editor

CNBC polled 29 ‘professional economists’ about Fed Day.

I ignored them all and positioned for the one thing they didn’t consider: markets doing the opposite of expectations.

While Wall Street’s brightest minds were debating quarter vs half-point cuts…

I was laughing at a different number entirely.

94.7%.

That’s the probability that CME Fed Watch showed for a quarter-point cut.

When I see consensus that strong, my contrarian radar starts screaming.

Because here’s what those 29 experts missed…

Fed Day isn’t about being right on direction.

It’s about being positioned for chaos.

The Consensus Was Suffocating

CNBC’s survey revealed those professionals expected political pressure on Fed independence, inflation concerns, higher unemployment, and slower growth.

All very neat predictions about policy implications.

Meanwhile, I was watching something else entirely: the political warfare brewing between this administration and Jerome Powell.

Three months of name-calling. Court battles over Fed governors. Lisa Cook getting blocked from being fired right before the meeting.

You think that doesn’t create unusual market dynamics?

My Contrarian Setup

That’s why I positioned with a strangle – buying both calls and puts on SPY with strikes around 661 call and 660 put. Total cost: just under $6.

My target? A 1% move in either direction. The position would profit as long as the market moved more than my premium cost.

While the experts debated policy, I was focused on how the market would react to whatever Powell said.

The Real Fed Day Strategy

Position the day before. I sent out the trade at 2:30 Central, 30 minutes before close. Get positioned when you can think clearly, not when Powell’s talking.

Target 1% moves. Anything over 1% up or down on SPY, and the strangle position is profitable. It’s not about hitting home runs – it’s about consistent profitability on volatility.

Use zero-day options strategically. These become precision tools for capturing short-term volatility around known catalysts.

What The Experts Always Miss

Those 29 economists were trying to predict the future. I was positioned to profit from uncertainty.

The difference? When markets do weird things around Fed announcements – which happens more often than anyone wants to admit – I’m positioned to profit. They’re left scrambling to explain why their predictions didn’t match market reality.

YOUR ACTION PLAN

The Fed delivered exactly what 94.7% of the market expected.

But here’s what those 29 economists missed…

This rate cut just set up the next 90 days for PEAK volatility.

And volatility is where the real money gets made.

The zero-day strangle I showed you? That’s just the beginning.

Because when markets get chaotic (and they’re about to), having a systematic approach to profit from that chaos becomes everything.

The Fed Shockwave is Coming

The political warfare between Powell and this administration isn’t over.

The following 90 days could deliver the most volatile three months we’ve seen in years.

Most traders will panic when markets swing wild.

Smart traders will position themselves to profit from those swings.

The post Did the Fed Just Spark 90 Days of Chaos? appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The market jumped as a result.

Investors should tread carefully – not because valuations are at historically high levels (though that is true), but because inflation is likely to burn hot if the Fed lowers rates.

Powell himself said the Fed has to manage both employment, which continues to stagnate, and inflation, which continues to rise. A rate cut only adds gasoline to the inflation fire.

In January, in the Forecast Issue of my newsletter, The Oxford Income Letter, I predicted that inflation would spike in 2025. A Fed rate cut would likely make that forecast a slam dunk.

There are not many investments that keep up with inflation – particularly ones that generate income.

Fixed income doesn’t do the trick. If you’re earning $1,000 a year in fixed income and prices rise 5%, something that used to cost $1,000 last year now costs $1,050. But your $1,000 in fixed income interest doesn’t budge, so you have a $50 hole to make up.

One of the only ways to combat inflation is with dividend growth stocks.

These companies pay dividends (usually quarterly) and raise their dividends each year. If you have a stock whose dividend is hiked by a meaningful amount, you could actually increase your buying power, even in periods of rising inflation.

For example, Civista Bancshares (Nasdaq: CIVB), a microcap bank based in Ohio, has been around since 1884. Today, the stock yields 3.2%, but the company has raised its dividend every year since 2012 at a compound annual growth rate of over 13%. The most recent dividend increase was lower at 6.3%, but that is still above the current inflation rate, so it still boosted shareholders’ buying power.

Chevron (NYSE: CVX) is another solid dividend growth stock. The oil and gas giant has a current yield of 4.3% and has raised its dividend every year for 36 years.

The most recent increase was 5%, which as of now is higher than inflation.

Over the past 50 years, companies that raised or initiated a dividend outperformed the equal-weighted S&P 500 by nearly 3.5 times. They beat non-dividend payers by more than 1,700%.

Furthermore, when the spit hits the fan, dividend growers are safer than the overall market. The S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index, which tracks companies in the S&P 500 that have raised their dividends every year for at least 25 years, is 10% less volatile than the broad market.

In other words, during a correction, the Aristocrats should decline less than other stocks.

Rates are coming down, and inflation is going higher. Investors should look toward dividend growth stocks to keep up with inflation – or else risk seeing their purchasing power be reduced.

The post Rate Cuts Are Coming… and So Is Inflation appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The average money market rate is a disgustingly low 0.08%. At that rate, you might as well bury your money in your backyard. I’m kidding, of course (sort of).

The days of earning an annualized 4% yield in your savings or money market accounts are relics as ancient as fax machines and cassettes.

You have to work harder than ever to earn any kind of yield. Here are a few ideas to help you eke out a few more dollars with your short-term funds…

Series I Savings Bonds

This is hands down my favorite short-term, ultra-safe place to put cash right now.

Series I savings bonds adjust their interest rate based on inflation. And right now, they pay a whopping 9.6% annualized rate. Their rate changes every six months.

It’s important to note that your money will be locked up for one year. You cannot take it out. After one year, you can sell anytime you want, though you’ll give up three months’ worth of interest if you sell before five years. Even with a three-month penalty, you’ll earn more than you would in any other safe investment.

Like a Treasury, it’s backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

You can buy these bonds only through TreasuryDirect, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s website.

Treasury Bills

If you need access to your funds before one year, you can buy Treasury bills, also known as T-bills.

You’ll earn a 1.11% annualized rate on a four-week T-bill, a 1.52% annualized rate on an eight-week T-bill and a 1.59% annualized rate on a 13-week T-bill. You can buy them through your broker or through TreasuryDirect.

Savings Accounts

If you need even more liquidity, the highest-yielding savings account in the U.S. currently belongs to Bread Financial, whose Bread Savings high-yield savings account yields 1.65% and can be opened with as little as $100.

Tax-Free Money Market Funds

If you’re in a very high tax bracket, you may want to consider a money market fund that invests in tax-free municipal bonds. For example, the Vanguard Municipal Money Market Fund (VMSXX) yields 0.82% annualized, tax-free. The price remains stable at $1, and Vanguard has extremely low fees.

Certificates of Deposit (CDs)

Forget about CDs for now. You’ll make more on a Treasury. If your money is going to be locked up for a period of time (even a brief period), Treasurys are the way to go (unless it’s for a year, then buy Series I savings bonds).

If your investing time horizon is longer, I strongly recommend investing in Perpetual Dividend Raisers – companies that raise their dividends every year. There are plenty of stocks that yield 4% or more today, but importantly, you’ll earn more every year when these stocks raise their dividends.

But for short-term money, until the Fed meaningfully raises rates, savings rates will remain under pressure and it will be a challenge to keep up with inflation, except for with Series I savings bonds.

Good investing,

Marc

The post Where to Put Cash Now appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

The recent 7% reading of the consumer price index is the highest inflation reading since 1982. Prior to last year, other than a short blip in 2011, inflation had been mostly nonexistent for more than a decade, spending most of the time below 2%.

That changed suddenly as the world started reopening. As fast as an uncoiling spring, people began opening their wallets to resume living the lives they’d been denied for a year.

Inflation is on everyone’s mind today, and that 7% figure doesn’t begin to tell the story. Prices are higher in nearly all walks of life – and in some, they’re up considerably. Have you ordered from a restaurant lately, considered buying a car or booked a hotel room?

Wall Street experts and economists are all talking about inflation today, yet almost no one was when I warned readers of my Oxford Income Letter last year that “inflation will be here sooner than most expect” and when we started positioning our portfolios accordingly.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has only recently come to share my concern, as he had previously vowed to keep interest rates near zero. That would’ve been great news if you were looking for a mortgage. Terrible news if you were hoping your investments would keep up with inflation.

Treasurys – a staple for conservative investors – pay nothing. The 10-year Treasury yields just more than 1.7%.

But even more aggressive bonds aren’t keeping up with inflation.

The average high-yield (junk) bond yields less than 4% today, down from nearly 6% two years ago (before the pandemic).

So where can an investor obtain a relatively safe yield that will keep up with inflation?

In 2012, I wrote the first edition of my book Get Rich with Dividends to answer that question – and the following year, I launched The Oxford Income Letter (we just celebrated our 100th issue in 2021).

The strategy behind both is my 10-11-12 System, which is focused on dividend growth for the exact situation we find ourselves in today. It shows investors how to earn 11% yields within 10 years or 12% average annual returns in 10 years with dividends reinvested.

We want our recommendations to not only keep up with inflation but also increase our buying power.

If, in 2013, you’d bought one of my first recommendations – Texas Instruments (Nasdaq: TXN) – and were still holding today, aside from seeing your stock go up by nearly seven times, your yield would be 13.5%, almost double the current rate of inflation.

Or consider Enbridge (NYSE: ENB). I recommended it less than three years ago, and investors are now enjoying a 7.4% yield on their original purchase price.

If you’re relying on your investments for income, that income needs to be able to grow. There aren’t many safe investments that will do that.

And while all stocks carry risk, dividend growers outperform over the long term and have never had a down 10-year period as measured by the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats Index.

By investing in stocks that raise their dividends every year, you’re boosting your buying power.

Whether inflation drops back down to 2% or goes up higher from here, if your dividends are growing by 8%, 10% or more, you won’t have to worry about rising prices because your dividends should have you covered.

As inflation continues to rise (as I expect), dividend growth stocks will help you beat it.

Good investing,

Marc

P.S. If you haven’t yet, check out my free Inflation Emergency Broadcast where I sit down with Larry Kudlow, former director of the National Economic Council of the United States, to discuss the worsening inflationary crisis.

In it, I explain the smart way to keep up with inflation by using quality dividend payers to produce a never-ending income stream.

Click here to see for yourself.

The post How to Keep Pace With Red-Hot Inflation appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

After working and saving diligently for decades, they have earned next to nothing on their hard-earned savings thanks to historically low interest rates.

They’ve done everything right but have been robbed of their expected retirement income by central bankers.

But watching U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s evolving view on inflation, I’m beginning to think that my parents – and retirees at large – are soon going to be getting a raise.

In January, Yellen said she wasn’t worried at all about inflation. Two months later, in March, she said inflation risks were “small and manageable.” In June, she acknowledged inflation had become elevated but assured us it was only “transitory in nature.”

Now we’re in October, and Yellen is finally admitting that our high rate of inflation is here to stay awhile.

The inflation genie is out of the bottle, as you can see below.

At last check, Yellen said that high inflation will be with us until at least the middle of 2022.

But let’s be honest…

She has no idea where inflation is going, and neither does anyone else.

Here’s what we do know… First, the actions of central banks around the world since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have primed the pump for inflation like at no other time in modern history.

The risk of astronomical inflation has never been higher.

Second, if inflation stays at current levels, interest rates are going to go higher.

More accurately, interest rates are going to go a lot higher.

Current Interest Rates and Current Inflation Don’t Match

History provides a pretty clear view of where interest rates may be going.

The scatter plot below matches historical interest rates for the U.S. 10-year Treasury with the corresponding rates of inflation for every month since 1991.

Each dot represents where a month falls.

As you can see, almost all of the dots fall somewhere along the plotted trend line that moves upward and to the right – except recent months, which are blatant anomalies.

The trend line establishes where the 10-year Treasury bond rates should be based on the existing level of inflation.

At 2% inflation, the trend line shows that the 10-year Treasury should yield more than 3%.

At 3% inflation, it should yield 5%.

And at 4% inflation, our chart predicts the 10-year Treasury yielding 6%.

With current core consumer price index (less food and energy) inflation readings in excess of 4%, the trend line on this chart tells us that the 10-year Treasury should currently yield as much as 7%!

Instead, we have a 10-year Treasury yield of just 1.6%, which is far below where history tells us it should be.

That means if inflation stays at more than 4%, interest rates have to move up significantly.

If that happens, it wouldn’t be good news for borrowers.

In 1990, when inflation was last comparable to what it is today, the 30-year mortgage rate in the United States was more than 10%!

But for savers and seniors like my parents, a return of 1990s interest rates would be most welcome.

My parents have most of their savings in term deposits that are currently earning almost nothing.

Current five-year term deposits offer a paltry interest rate of roughly 0.78%.

For perspective, consider that if a retired couple had $1 million in five-year term deposits today, they would earn only $7,000 on their initial investment.

That is offensive!

In 1990, a five-year term deposit paid almost 8%.

At that rate, $1 million in a five-year term deposit would produce $80,000 of passive income.

That would be a much more appropriate return on a lifetime of savings.

For my parents and others like them, an appropriate return to 1990s interest rates would mean an exponential increase in their passive income.

With the current rate of inflation, history suggests that could be what’s coming.

Keep that in mind as you look ahead.

Good investing,

Jody

The post History Indicates an Interest Rate Hike appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

But it was in the news all the time. People seemed to be upset by it. I had more important things to worry about – like hoping to see some Yankees in my new pack of baseball cards.

Today, inflation is at the highest point it’s been in my adult life, which spans 30 years.

Prior to this year, starting in 1992, per the consumer price index, U.S. inflation rose above the annual historical average of 3.2% only three times, reaching a high of 3.8% in 2008. Each time it eclipsed the average, it fell the following year.

Today, inflation stands at 5.3%, and I expect it to head much higher.

We have a perfect storm of events and policies that should shoot prices significantly upward, including…

• Government spending. The government plans on spending trillions more in the next few years. Regardless of what budget or bills get passed, the economy will be sloshing around with newly printed dollars. All that money chasing limited goods and services will drive prices higher.
• Zero interest rates. The accommodative policy of the Fed makes borrowing money dirt-cheap and adds to the spending frenzy going on right now.
• The pandemic. The lockdown created pent-up demand for goods and services. And while things were closed, Americans saved cash and paid down debt. Now, like their elected officials, they’re going back to spending money like a spoiled teenager with rich parents.
• Supply chain constraints. Due to labor shortages and other issues, there are not enough raw materials, finished products and available services, limiting the supply of those goods and services as demand surges. That is inflationary.

At some point in the next 12 to 24 months, I would not be surprised to see a spike in inflation to the high single digits or perhaps even higher. Those kinds of numbers would greatly erode your buying power – so you need to prepare for it now.

Here are three actions you can take…

1. Own Perpetual Dividend Raisers. These are stocks that raise their dividends every year.

   If you’re receiving more income from your dividend stocks each year, you should be able to maintain and hopefully increase your buying power instead of seeing it decay due to inflation.

2. Keep fixed-income maturities short term. You don’t want to be locked into a fixed-income product for years in which your income doesn’t rise.

   If you’re earning 4% today and inflation hits 6% or 8% in the next year, you’re losing buying power. If your maturities are short, you’ll be able to reinvest the cash as it matures at higher rates.

3. Look for variable-rate products. There are some bonds whose rates are variable depending on inflation or other factors. Those will help you maintain your buying power as inflation rises.

Perhaps the best thing I could have done to beat inflation was hang on to those baseball cards. But since Reggie Jackson can’t help me, I’m taking the steps mentioned above to make sure rising prices don’t destroy my buying power.

Good investing,

Marc

The post A Three-Ingredient Cure for Rising Inflation appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Why does that matter to us here at Wealthy Retirement?

Because right from the bottom of the COVID-19 crash last spring, we have been pounding the table on bank stocks.

It took a bit of time for Mr. Market to agree with us, but our call on the banks has delivered. Financial stocks have thrashed the market since last spring.

It has been a great time to own the banking sector, and the good times aren’t over.

Recently, the U.S. Federal Reserve released the results of its latest “stress test” on the U.S. banking sector. The stress test is designed to show whether or not each bank has the financial stability to withstand a major global recession.

All 23 of the major U.S. banks passed with flying colors.

With these results, shareholders of U.S. banks are going to be well rewarded.

Last June, the Fed imposed limits on how much banks could return to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.

(As Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld pointed out in yesterday’s article, share buybacks are often a bad omen for stock performance. In the case of my favorite bank stock, I believe share buybacks will benefit shareholders because bank valuations are cheap. More on that in a moment.)

The goal was to make sure the banking system stayed strong so that it could support an economy weakened by COVID-19.

With bank balance sheets in incredible shape and the economy recovering quickly, the Fed is now removing those restrictions.

That means the amount of cash that U.S. banks are distributing to shareholders is about to increase.

Wells Fargo Just Announced a Huge Cash Return

My absolute favorite bank stock over the past year has been Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC).

In early October, I wrote about the stock’s then insanely cheap valuation.

At that time, the total market valuation for Wells Fargo had dipped to just $90 billion.

Against that entry price, the cash returns that Wells Fargo shareholders are about to receive over the next year are incredible.

With the Fed lifting payout restrictions, Wells Fargo has indicated that it intends to return more than $21.3 billion to shareholders over the next 12 months.

That $21.3 billion will be split as follows:

• $3.3 billion in dividends
• $18 billion in share buybacks.

For those of you who were buying shares at $22 with a $90 billion stock market valuation, it means you are now earning an annual cash payout from Wells Fargo of 23.6%. These huge share buybacks are going to dramatically reduce the number of shares Wells Fargo has outstanding.

With Wells Fargo’s current share price near $45, a total of $18 billion in buybacks will reduce Wells Fargo’s share count by 10% in just 12 months.

For share repurchases to be a good idea, they have to be done when a company’s shares are attractively valued. Given that Wells Fargo can reduce its share count by 10% in just one year, we know that the company is getting a good deal.

When it comes to share buybacks, a company should think like an investor. That means buying low and selling (issuing shares) high. That is exactly what Wells Fargo and the banking industry are doing.

With these buybacks, Wells Fargo’s share count will drop from 4.1 billion shares to 3.7 billion shares.

To appreciate how powerful this share count reduction will be, consider that Wells Fargo is expected to earn $20 billion next year.

With 4.1 billion shares outstanding, $20 billion in earnings equates to $4.87 in earnings per share.

(Remember, it is always earnings per share that matters to us as investors.)

After a year of buybacks, at the reduced 3.7 billion share count, the same $20 billion in earnings equates to $5.40 in earnings per share, which is 11% higher.

That means with just one year of share repurchases, Wells Fargo will have created 11% per share earnings growth even if total earnings don’t increase.

And Wells Fargo has the earnings power to buy back this amount of stock every year! That means double-digit earnings per share growth just because of the buybacks alone.

At this pace, Wells Fargo could repurchase every outstanding share in just 10 years, assuming that earnings stay constant.

If you will recall from my earlier pieces on Wells Fargo, I believe there is significant earnings growth coming.

Wells Fargo’s management has indicated that it expects to drive $8 billion of earnings growth in the coming years by bringing the company’s expenses in line with those of the rest of the industry.

And if interest rates start rising, driving wider lending margins, Wells Fargo’s earnings will increase even more.

Wells Fargo has already been a big winner – and with the cash returned to shareholders exploding higher, this ride on the American banking sector is going to just keep getting better.

Good investing,

Jody

The post This Play on American Banks Just Keeps Getting Better appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

In this week’s episode of his YouTube series State of the Market, Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld reveals his three top plays for beating rising inflation.

On Monday, Associate Franchise Publisher Rachel Gearhart discussed how last month, we saw the consumer price index rise to 4.2% – even though the Fed had forecast 1.8% inflation for 2021.

Marc was on top of this trend as early as August of last year, when he investigated the spread on Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) and concluded that the market was bracing itself for rising prices.

He wrote…

The federal government printed more money in June than it did in the first 203 years of this country’s existence… All that money sloshing around is inflationary… The current TIPS spread is 1.73. That is hardly hyperinflation, but it has been steadily rising and is above the average for the year. I expect this trend to continue.

That spread now sits at 2.41.

In August, Marc recommended safeguarding your portfolio using TIPS, gold and Perpetual Dividend Raisers.

In this week’s video, he’ll share three of his favorite dividend payers for combating inflation – absolutely free. They include a metals producer, an energy stock and an exchange-traded fund (ETF) you’ve likely never heard of before…

<<Click here now to watch this week’s episode.>>

Good investing,

Mable

The post Marc’s Top Stocks for Rising Inflation appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.

Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld predicted this months ago – and also made two other key forecasts Associate Franchise Publisher Rachel Gearhart digs into in today’s Wealthy Retirement.

– Mable Buchanan, Managing Editor

Just last week, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the annual inflation rate was a whopping 4.2%. The Federal Reserve, which until recently estimated that inflation would be 1.8% for the year, has been eating crow (more on this in a moment).

But The Oxford Club – and more specifically, Chief Income Strategist Marc Lichtenfeld – saw the writing on the wall a while ago.

In the September 2020 issue of The Oxford Income Letter, Marc said, “We’re at the beginning of several trends: an infrastructure boom, rising metal prices and inflation.”

Admittedly, analysts have been predicting an infrastructure boom since before former President Trump took office.

Of the three predictions that Marc made, the one regarding the infrastructure boom was the least surprising. That said, Marc’s timing was spot-on. Check out the surge in infrastructure since September…

The Global X U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF (CBOE: PAVE) is up more than 59% since September.

Then there was Marc’s prediction about a rally in metals prices… during a rally in metals prices.

In 2020, the prices of gold, silver and copper had spiked to their highest levels since 2013, but Marc thought they could go even higher.

Since the end of September, silver is up 17%, palladium is up 28%, platinum and aluminum are up around 40%, and copper is up a staggering 56%.

Since Marc’s prediction, gold hasn’t cooperated and is down around 3%.

In a recent call, Marc explained, “I’m not sure why gold isn’t participating in the rally. Perhaps Bitcoin is replacing gold as a store of value for some investors. But I think we’re in the very early stages of a big bull market in most metals.”

The boldest of Marc’s three predictions was the one he made about inflation.

In September, Marc said, “The risks of inflation are now unquestionably higher than they have been in decades. To ignore those risks would be a mistake.”

At the time, the Fed forecast 1.8% inflation for 2021. Hardly a number to lose sleep over.

Meanwhile, Marc was pounding the table that inflation would be well above 2%.

His argument was simple: Since 1914, the average historical inflation rate has been 3.2%.

For the 12 months that ended in September 2020, the annual U.S. inflation rate was a measly 1.2%.

It had to go up from there.

And boy did it…

As I mentioned, last week, the Department of Labor announced that the annual inflation rate was a colossal 4.2%.

In March 2021, the central bank revised its 1.8% inflation estimate to 2.4% for the year.

It was only six months behind Marc in admitting that we may be staring down the barrel of some daunting inflation numbers. (Though, it is the Fed… Is anyone really surprised it made a bad call?)

Marc’s predictions have panned out, so what now?

“The infrastructure, metals and inflation trends are just getting started,” Marc says. “Investors should add positions that will benefit from rising inflation, such as financials and commodity plays.”

Another way Marc is recommending combatting rising inflation is with cryptocurrency.

But it’s not what you might think…

At $50,000 a pop, Bitcoin is quite a gamble… And it would need to reach $100,000 per coin just to double your money! Don’t get me started on Dogecoin.

Luckily, Marc has found another way to get in on the white-hot crypto trend with a $9 “backdoor” investment opportunity.

According to Marc…

There are many who believe that crypto – specifically Bitcoin – is a good hedge against inflation because of the finite amount of Bitcoin that exists.

Should crypto continue to be popular, owning the stocks of companies that serve the crypto industry (and can make money no matter which way crypto prices go) will be an excellent way to increase your buying power and stay ahead of inflation.

If you’re interested in combatting sky-high inflation and dipping your toe into the crypto pool, check out Marc’s newest research for all the details.

Good investing,

Rachel

The post How to Play Sky-High Inflation appeared first on Wealthy Retirement.