WIP at $38.13. Not much of a fall, but that's not the main reason I mention it.

WIP is a US-listed ETF stuffed full of non-US inflation protected government bonds, from a wide variety of countries.

I consider it the world's safest single-click security, in terms of wealth preservation: still having the same overall purchasing power many years down the line as you have now. It actually has a positive real yield, too, though it's not that high. I would consider that as just the icing on the "robust wealth protection" cake.

The US dollar seems a bit on the high side at the moment, so the price of WIP quoted in US dollars is a bit on the low side right now. Down 8.5% from its 52 week high (though less if you count the meaningful monthly coupon).

One might speculate that there is no chance of the US making meaningful progress on the deficit any time soon, so the only option (sooner or later) will be to let inflation slip upwards to erode away some of the debt. As the most famous US politician said this week, "You know, inflation. Certain levels of inflation will also pay off that debt very rapidly. Very rapidly."

I'm not saying there is any imminent currency crisis in the cards for the US dollar, but the omens are not consistent with long term bullish prospects. So if you have some US cash kicking around that you just want to hold its general purpose purchasing power in the next several years, it might not be a bad place to park that money.

A note about the coupons: inflation protected bonds are weird. Some countries adjust for inflation by adjusting the principal, some by adjusting the coupon. Plus, bonds change prices as inflation perceptions and interest rates change. So you never really know how much of the inflation adjustment is going to show up as a coupon, and how much will show up as changes in NAV. The historical chart *without* reinvested coupons is therefore extremely misleading. But FWIW, last 12 months of coupons come out to a yield of 6.3% on today's price. A general expectation should be that the price chart including reinvested dividends, viewed arbitrarily in US dollars, will generally be the inverse of the broad trade weighted US dollar level, plus a modest upwards trend representing the real yield. stockcharts.com by default shows prices with dividend adjustments included.

Jim