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Brett Arends' ROI
May 6, 2011, 12:00 a.m. EDT
By Brett Arends, MarketWatch
BOSTON (MarketWatch) "” Would you buy an investment that was absolutely guaranteed to lose money?
No ifs, ands or buts: This sucker will make you poorer! How's that sound?
You might think this is a crazy question. You're probably thinking, who would choose to own an investment that is guaranteed to lose money?
The answer is lots of people. Millions. And most of them have no idea what's happening.
You may be among them.
You wouldn't believe what's going on in the bond market right now. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't either.
I'm talking about short-term Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, known as TIPS. These are U.S. government bonds that are increasingly popular with investors. They offer a guaranteed rate of return on top of the official inflation rate.
A TIPS bond that has a "real" yield of say, 2%, will guarantee you the Consumer Price Index plus 2% over the life of the bond. If the CPI works out at 3% a year, you'll get 5%. If the CPI is 10%, you'll get 12% and so on.
Most of the time, TIPS have been a pretty good investment, especially for retirees and for conservative investors. They've earned you 2% to 3% a year above inflation, with no worry or fuss.
Right now?
These yields have collapsed. TIPS bonds are booming in price, and bonds work like a seesaw: When the price goes up, the yield goes down.
Ten-year TIPS are offering real yields below 1%. It's pitiful. The short-term TIPS are even worse.
As you can see from our chart, the "real" or after-inflation yield on 5-year TIPS bonds has plunged into the red. It's minus almost half a percentage point a year. That's right: negative.
In other words, under almost any possible scenario, these bonds are guaranteed to lose you nearly half a percent of your purchasing power, each year, for the next five years "” a total loss of 2.5%, guaranteed.
"TIPS: The latest big steal http://on.mktw.net/lWDoma" 12:02 a.m. EDT, May 6, 2011 from MKTWArends
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Brett Arends is an award-winning financial columnist with many years experience writing about markets, economics and personal finance in Europe and the U.S. He has received an individual award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for his financial writing, and was part of the Boston Herald team that won two others. He was educated at Cambridge and Oxford Universities, and has worked as an analyst at McKinsey & Co. He is a Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) and Accredited Asset Management Specialist (AAMS). His latest book, "Storm Proof Your Money," has just been published by John Wiley & Co.
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