What do we want? We want inflation protection, we want it now, and we want it, ideally, in a highly-reliable set-and-forget format please.

I’m a passive investor after all, and I’ve been hunting for alternatives since the passive investor’s choice of inflation insulation – a short-duration index-linked bond ETF – had a [checks glossary of terms] ‘mare during the post-Covid CPI blow-up.

The purpose of this article, then, is to run through the list of other potential antidotes to see how they actually performed when prices boiled over.

We’ve previously looked at the scale of defeat for short-duration index-linked bond1 funds, and also the so-so performance of the most obvious replacement – a DIY portfolio of individual index-linked gilts.

Here’s a quick refresher via a chart:

Data from JustETF, Tradeweb and ONS. February 2025

As you can see, neither of our index-linked contenders actually kept up with inflation. Disappointing.  

Partly the problem was that inflation-linked bonds were saddled with negative yields going into the pandemic inflation. And partly that the subsequent rise in yields – from negative to positive – inflicted a substantial price hit. 

Today a portfolio of individual linkers looks a good inflation hedge because they’re on positive yields. 

But assembling such a portfolio requires some work. For many, it seems like an arcane and fiddly task – like building your own microcomputer in the 1970s and ’80s. 

Isn’t there a BBC Micro, ZX81, or failing that, a VIC-20 of inflation containment you can just buy off the shelf? By which I mean a fund full of assets that eat rising prices for breakfast? 

We’ll answer that in the next six charts. They show how most assets that could be turned to as your chief inflation-tamer dealt with the money monster from October 2021 to year-end 2024.

Note: all returns in this article are GBP nominal, dividends reinvested.

Inflation vs money market funds

How did cash do, as represented by money market funds?

Data from Heriot-Watt/ Institute and Faculty of Actuaries/ESCoE British Government Securities Database and ONS. February 2025

Cash was comfortably trashed.

For comparison, the annualised returns are:

• Cash: 3.5%
• Inflation: 5.9%

Money market rates were positive versus inflation in 2023 and 2024, but not enough to make up the lost ground. What’s more, money markets have been a real-terms loser all the way back to 2009 (bar a 0.4% gain in 2015).

Cash is popular now. Rates are high and bonds burned many investors. But money market funds have historically provided a flimsy inflation defence.

Inflation vs gold

Gold had a stormer. In fact, without wishing to ruin the surprise gold was the best asset in our round-up. (Oh dear, I’ve ruined the surprise!)

Data from The London Bullion Market Association and ONS. February 2025

Annualised returns:

• Gold: 15.9%
• Inflation: 5.9%

Gold has a reputation as an inflation hedge. A distinction that’s surely been burnished by its recent performance.

But gold isn’t really tethered to inflation.

Even the few years covered by the chart indicate it dances to a different tune. Inflation whips up in late 2021 and absolutely rages in 2022. However, we’re firmly back in the realms of standard-issue 2.5% inflation by 2024.

Whereas gold is on fire in 2024, does merely okay in 2023, and registers a 0.1% real terms loss in 2022.

Overall, gold holders can be very happy with their choice this time, but its future reliability remains an enigma.

It’s entirely plausible that gold is propped up in inflationary situations because many people believe it is an inflation hedge.

They take refuge in gold as inflation rates climb while bailing on asset classes that succumb to price pressure.

The problem is the lack of:

1. A solid underlying theory which explains gold’s role as an inflation shield.
2. A string of historical examples that provide convincing proof that gold withstands the heat when CPI melts-up.

Gold at least seems to thrive during periods of great uncertainty – and inflationary shocks do contribute towards a general sense of systematic instability.

Inflation vs commodities

Raw materials are part of the very physics of inflation itself. Can they help us?

Data from Bloomberg and ONS. February 2025

Annualised return:

• Commodities: 5.9%
• Inflation: 5.9%

Commodities scored a draw – precisely matching the rise in headline rates over the period.

However, there’s a canary in the coal mine relationship between commodities and high inflation.

Rising raw material costs feed inflation, which means that commodities prices have historically front-run UK CPI by a year or so. If we zoom out to include commodities’ 28% gain in 2021, then we discover that the asset class did comfortably beat inflation after all.

There is also good evidence that commodities have historically outperformed other asset classes when inflation flares up. I’ll dig into this in more detail soon.

The other point worth making is that commodities are highly volatile and negatively correlated with equities and bonds. Rebalance sharp-ish when commodity prices spike and you may earn a juicy rebalancing bonus for your trouble.

Inflation vs World equities

The next chart seems to be saying: forget all the fancy stuff, just focus on pound-cost averaging and keep your head:

Data from MSCI and ONS. February 2025

Annualised return:

• World equities: 10.8%
• Inflation: 5.9%

Equities slipped below inflation’s high-water mark in 2022 and 2023. Only to surface and rise like a continental crumple zone, once the price pressure subsided.

Historically equities have typically reacted to inflation like it’s an essential vitamin. The right dose keeps stocks – and the rest of the economy – humming. But too much and financial weakness, nausea, vomiting, and cramps follow.

Still, equities have always recovered quickly once inflation has returned to reasonable levels. We saw that again this time.

Perhaps young, resilient accumulators should forget about hedging inflation and focus on outrunning it.

Inflation vs all-comers

Just for fun, here’s everything piled into one uber bar-room brawl of a graph:

If your portfolio was this diversified then you could hardly have done much more. Here’s the full rundown of annualised results, along with cumulative returns in brackets:

• Inflation: 5.9% (20.6%)
• Linker fund: 0.6% (2.1%)
• Cash / money market: 3.5% (11.9%)
• Individual linker portfolio: 4.1% (14%)
• Commodities: 5.9% (20.4%)
• World equities: 10.8% (39.5%)
• Gold: 15.9% (61.4%)

Personally-speaking, the recent price spiral has profoundly reshaped my portfolio. I have since sold my linker fund and bought individual index-linked gilts, gold, and commodities instead.

Hopefully that means that – in tandem with a chunky equity allocation – my portfolio is better equipped to meet future inflationary bow waves.

Still, if you go to an anti-inflationary arms fair, you’ll meet plenty of people willing to sell you on all manner of other solutions…

Inflation countermeasure or counterfeit?

Here’s a selection of oft-cited inflation-busters, charted over the same period as before only this time in ETF form:

Data from JustETF

As a range-finder, an MSCI World equities ETF (cyan line) hits the right-hand side of the graph at the 39.5% mark.

Inflation itself would score 6% – about double the red real estate line.

WOOD, the global timber ETF (magenta line), trails the pack with a cumulative return of 1.2%. I looked at UK property, too, which was the only fund to post a negative return over the period.

The clear winner is the oil and gas equities ETF (blue line). Fossil fuel supply shocks are often a large component of unexpected inflation. You’ll recall that Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and unleashed energy blackmail against Europe soon after.

I’ve also included an oil and gas commodity futures ETC (yellow line). Initially it leaps too, hedging inflation up to year-end 2023. But it was no inflation-beater beyond that, lagging CPI by the end of 2024.

It’s intriguing that infrastructure (orange line), real estate, and timber all enjoyed bounces in early 2022 as inflation bit hard. But only infrastructure maintained its momentum before falling behind inflation in 2023.

True, infrastructure was an inflation-beater again by the end of 2024. But it only delivered half the value of the MSCI World during the period.

Finally, the Momentum and Quality factor ETFs haven’t added anything new beyond extra squiggles on the graph. It’s only a short timeline, but their correlation with World equities is much more apparent than any link to inflation.

Over-inflated

Okay, ‘less is more’ is the phrase that always comes to mind after a strong bout of inflation – or to one of my posts. Once again I’ve failed to master the art of shrinkflation when it comes to Monevator word counts.

So next time I’ll dig deeper into the UK’s extensive historical archives of high-inflation episodes to see which asset classes held the line against successive waves of money rot.

Time to slap The Investor with an enormous wage demand!

Take it steady,

The Accumulator

1. Colloquially known as ‘linkers’. [↩]

What caught my eye this week.

It’s not been easy to find reasons to be optimistic about the shrinking British stock market in recent years.

But I think how private investors, fund managers, the investment trust industry, and investment platforms worked together to defeat US firm Saba’s designs on the trust sector might qualify.

As I wrote last month, there was something of a last alliance vibe about this coalition of the unwilling.

But so comprehensively was Saba defeated – it lost all seven showdowns, and on large turnouts of private investors who overwhelmingly voted no – that the result was quite heartening.

This was shareholder democracy in action, and I’m all for it.

Moreover the platforms showed that they can facilitate such a democracy if called upon.

Your vote counted

In the early days of Monevator, lots of readers urged me to write articles about the evils of nominee share ownership and the demise of paper share certificates.

I saw their point. But I also saw the changes as inevitable and not the most important battle to win compared to, say, lowering fees or spreading knowledge about index fund investing.

Anyway such appeals stopped long ago, whether because the proponents accepted the change or because they moved on to a realm where their voice was even less influential than here on this mortal coil.

But wherever they are, I hope they’re heartened too.

Nominee ownership and representation via electronic voting on platforms does not inevitably mean disenfranchisement, or to be kicked around by those with the billions and the biggest boots.

And that is good news, whether or not you agreed with Saba’s charges and proposals. (Personally I share some of his complaints. But I was not persuaded by the remedy he was offering.)

He gets knocked down, but he gets up again

Saba is now going after a new quartet of trusts, suggesting they be turned into open-ended funds.

Curiously, Moguls-featured Pershing Square isn’t on the list despite its yawning discount.

Anyway, we’ll have to whether Saba’s relentlessness eventually exhausts the opposition.

More UK investors are apparently getting in on the act too. For example, the hugely talented Christopher Mills is said to be raising money for a trust that will work to close discounts at rivals.

As somebody who sees rife opportunity in the trust sector, I’m not surprised.

Though ironically two Mills-affiliated investment trusts themselves sit on 25-30% discounts…

Passive engagement

I’ll leave more comment in that direction for our Moguls member posts though.

Indeed for most Monevator readers who sensibly invest in index funds, this might all seem a bit irrelevant.

But I’d suggest it’s very relevant.

As index funds take up an ever-larger share of the overall investing pie, it’s really important that cheap and effective investing for the masses doesn’t become a lazy synonym for disenfranchised investors and the fracturing of shareholder democracy.

That charge has already being made as index funds have grown to dominate the investing landscape. For example, from the New Statesman:

The upshot of this mix is an ownership regime with a chief interest in maximising assets – whether by minimising costs to take market share, or by promoting general asset price inflation – and takes little interest both in how capital is allocated and how any company within its diversified portfolio is governed.

In other words, such an ownership regime takes no ethical stance on what those companies produce, how they are run, what they sell or what impact they have on the planet.

It’s a valid concern.

Squint though and you can see this battle with Saba as upholding the thin end of the same wedge that ends with Vanguard cutting fees further in the US recently.

The common thread is what’s ultimately in the long-term interests of ordinary shareholders.

Perhaps there’s even a future where even index fund investors get to vote their wishes somehow on the vast range of issues raising by the firms their tracker funds hold – albeit perhaps by aggregating their general wishes at the fund manager level?

Time will tell. But I’m more hopeful about that sort of thing than I was two months ago.

Have a great weekend.

p.s. Two corrections! We featured a wonky graphic in the email of TA’s linker piece on Tuesday. Thanks to reader Richard for the heads-up, and see the corrected post for the right graph. Then the next day TA achieved a – very rare for him – double by misstating the age you can open a cash ISA. You must be 18, of course. Sorry cash-loving youngsters! And cheers to reader Tommo for spotting what I missed.

[continue reading…]

The tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April the next year. This means that the most crucial UK tax deadline occurs every April.

That’s because there exist various annual allowances and tax reliefs that you need to make use of to legally mitigate your income tax bill and stop taxes devouring your investment returns.

Most of these are ‘use it or lose it’ allowances with a 5 April deadline.

It’s no good bemoaning in June that you should have filled your ISA allocation by 5 April, but you were too preoccupied by the Donald Trump Show or the Six Nations rugby!

No point cursing if you create a £500 capital gains tax liability in July that you might have defused in March!

Ch-ch-changes

Of course you read Monevator. You know this kind of stuff. But it’s still all too easy to overlook something.

Especially when the tax rules keep changing! For example, the capital gains allowance was halved in the 2024-25 tax year to just £3,000.

So let’s run through a checklist of what to think about as the UK tax deadline draws near.

Follow the links in each section to go deeper.

ISA allowance

The annual ISA allowance is the maximum amount of new money you can put each year into the range of tax-free savings and investment accounts that comprise the ISA family.

The ISA allowance for the current tax year to 5 April is £20,000.

You cannot carry forward or rollback this ISA allowance. What you don’t use in the tax year is lost forever.

ISAs are a superb vehicle for growing your wealth tax-free. But the fiddly rules – seemingly made up by a bureaucrat with a grudge against mankind – are subject to change over time.

Watch out for rule tweaks

For example, as of the 2024-25 tax year you can now open multiple ISAs of the same type in the same tax year.

Previously you could only open one new ISA of each type in a tax year.

Note though that you can only contribute £20,000 in total to your ISAs a year – old or new. And it’s down to you to keep track of your running total.

Also, you can still only pay into one Lifetime ISA per year. The maximum contribution here is £4,000. This counts towards your £20,000 annual ISA allowance.

Another change is that you can now make partial ISA transfers – although not all platforms will accept them. (Under the old rules, if you contributed to an ISA and then wanted to transfer the funds to a different provider in the same tax year, you had to transfer all of that year’s ISA contributions).

And another: fractional shares can now be held in a stocks and shares ISAs. They’re listed as ‘fractional interests’ on this page of qualifying investments.

My co-blogger wrote the definitive guide to the ISA allowance.

• The ISA allowance: how it works and how to use it

Pension contributions annual allowance

There is a limit to how much money you can contribute to your pension in a given tax year while still receiving tax relief on those contributions.

It is sometimes referred to as the pension annual allowance.

Despite massive speculation with every Budget, the allowance is still £60,000.1

However the rules about inheritance tax and pensions were thrown into the Magimix blender in late 2024:

• Pensions and inheritance tax: rugged by Reeves

Note that saving into a pension is mostly a tax-deferral strategy. That’s because you’re eventually taxed on pension withdrawals, unlike money you take out of an ISA tax-free.

In theory this makes ISAs and pensions equivalent from the perspective of tax.

In practice though, the fact that you can also draw a special tax-free lump sum from your pension gives pensions an edge in tax-terms – albeit at the cost of locking away your money for years.

Weigh up the pros and cons of each tax wrapper. We think most people should do a bit of both.

You can reduce your marginal tax rate by making pension contributions, if you can afford to go without the money today. Those on higher-rate tax bands should definitely do the maths:

• The rich person’s guide to pension contributions

Personal savings allowance

Under the personal savings allowance:

• Basic-rate taxpayers can earn £1,000 per year in savings interest without having to pay tax.
• Higher-rate taxpayers can earn £500 per year.
• Additional rate taxpayers don’t get any personal savings allowance.

Back when interest rates were very low, these savings allowances seemed quite generous.

But rising rates have changed everything. Even interest on unsheltered emergency funds can now take you over the personal savings allowance and see some of your interest being taxed.

Redo your sums. Higher-rate tax payers might look into holding low-coupon short duration gilts instead. Recently these have offered a lower-taxed alternative to savings interest.

• Why the personal savings allowance is important again

Dividend allowance

As of 6 April 2024, the annual tax-free dividend allowance was reduced to £500.

Dividends you receive within the tax-free dividend allowance are not taxed. But breach the allowance and you’ll pay a special dividend tax rate on the rest, according to your income tax band.

You can avoid the whole palaver by investing inside an ISA or pension.

• UK dividend tax explained

Capital gains tax allowance

Everyone has an annual capital gains tax allowance, or ‘annual exempt amount’ in the lingo of HMRC.

This allowance was halved to £3,000 from 6 April 2024.

It is (for now) frozen at this level.

Capital gains tax is levied on the profits you make when you sell or transfer most assets. These assets include everything from shares and buy-to-let properties to antiques and gold bars.

You can shield your gains from capital gains tax by investing within ISAs and pensions. Go re-read the relevant bits above if you skimmed them!

• Capital gains tax in the UK

EIS and VCT investments

You can also reduce your taxes by investing in Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) and Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS).

These vehicles are mostly marketed at wealthy high-earners for whom the large income tax breaks are attractive.

But be aware that these tax reliefs come with all kinds of risks, rules, and regulations.

VCTs

VCTs are venture capital funds run by professional managers who make investments into startup companies.

But somewhat quixotically, VCTs don’t even pretend to try to deliver high venture-style returns for investors.

Instead they aim to return cash via steady tax-free dividends.

You can invest up to £200,000 a year into VCTs. You must hold them for at least five years to keep your 30% income tax relief.

VCT fund charges are invariably expensive, and the returns mostly mediocre – especially if you back out the tax reliefs.

EIS

EIS investing is even riskier. Qualifying companies are usually very young, and many investors buy into them via crowdfunding platforms rather than professional fund managers.

The quality of these EIS opportunities is extremely variable, and information usually scanty.

And while there have been a few big crowdfunded winners, the majority do poorly and often go to zero.

If you’re a baller who buys Lamborghinis before breakfast, you may already know you can put up to £1m a year into EIS investments. (Up to £2m if you’re investing in ‘knowledge intensive companies’).

Again, you can knock 30% of your EIS investment amount from your income tax bill – and there are other reliefs should things go wrong.

You must hold EIS investments for three years to qualify for the tax relief.

Most people shouldn’t put more than fun money into EIS or even VCT schemes, in our opinion. Certainly not unless they’re very sophisticated investors or getting excellent financial advice.

• The risks of Venture Capital Trusts
• What are Enterprise Investment Schemes?
• Running a 31-fold gain in pursuit of a 100-bagger

Check in on your tax band and personal allowances

The rate of income tax you pay depends on your total income from all sources. This includes salary, interest, dividends, pensions, property letting, and so on.

You add up all this income to get your total income figure.

You then subtract your personal allowance from the total to see which tax bracket you fit into.

Everyone starts with the same personal allowance, regardless of age:

• This personal allowance is currently £12,570

Your personal allowance may be bigger if you qualify for Married Couple’s Allowance or Blind Person’s Allowance.

However the Personal Allowance goes down by £1 for every £2 of income above a £100,000 limit. It can go down to zero.

For England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the income bands after deducting allowances are:

Income Tax Rate	Income band
Starting rate for savings: 0%	£0-£5,000
Basic rate: 20%	£0- £37,700
Higher rate: 40%	£37,701-£125,140
Additional 45% rate	£125,141 and above

Source: HMRC

Note: If your non-savings taxable income is above the starting rate limit, then the starting savings rate does not apply to your savings income.

Scotland has its own income tax rates.

As we’ve seen above, there are further allowances and reliefs for income from certain sources – such as dividends and savings – that can reduce how much of that particular income is taxable.

You can take steps such as making additional pension contributions or having a spouse hold certain assets to further reduce your taxable income or the highest rate of tax you pay.

• UK tax brackets and personal allowances

Don’t make the UK tax deadline into a crisis

Scrambling to exploit these allowances before the tax year ends is not only stressful – it’s financially suboptimal.

If you had cash lying around that you might have put into an ISA earlier in the year, for example, then it could have been earning a tax-free return for months already.

But don’t blush too hard if you find yourself in this position.

Most of us are similar, which is why we wrote this article – and why the financial services industry bombards us with ISA promotions every March.

Try to automate your finances to invest smoothly and intentionally over the year.

And remember that April also brings warmer weather and longer days. Life is about much more than money and taxes!

Save and invest hard, take sensible steps to mitigate your tax bill, and enjoy life like a billionaire with whatever you’ve got leftover.

1. Very high-earners are subject to a much-fiddled with taper that reduces their allowance. It is reduced by £1 for every £2 someone earns over £260,000, including pension contributions. [↩]