The Federal Reserve’s accounts show American households holding more than 14 trillion dollars in bank deposits and roughly 7 trillion in money market funds. Behind a reassuring average, though, lies a sharply divided reality the mean conceals. This page fixes…
A target-date fund is sold as a simple, set-and-forget win. It is first something narrower: a delegated glide path with a fee. The manager decides the allocation, the fund selection, the rebalancing and the de-risking, and charges for it, whatever…
“Does cash protect against inflation?” The question expects a yes or a no. The series since 1960 answers differently: the real return depends on the macro regime. The same instrument protects in one configuration and erodes in another. “Does cash…
Each time the Livret A rate is reset, the argument is about the nominal figure. Across sixty-six years, that figure says almost nothing. The only quantity that matters over time, the real return, tells a far more uneven story than…
Cash, regulated savings and the euro compartment of life insurance share a guaranteed nominal capital, hence a real protection that depends entirely on the regime: positive when the credited rate exceeds inflation, silently eroded when inflation pulls ahead. TL;DR Guaranteed…
Gold’s correlation to equities is low on average, which makes it look like a diversifier. But that average is unstable: in some regimes gold cushioned the falls, in others it dropped alongside the market. TL;DR Gold's rolling correlation to equities…
Gold is priced in dollars but most often held in euros: for a European holder, the return combines the metal’s move in dollars and the euro’s move against the dollar. Currency is a second layer, neither neutral nor always visible.…
Over half a century, the real gold price has shown no relationship with inflation (correlation +0.04) but has fallen when the 10-year real interest rate rose (−0.40): it is the opportunity cost, not the level of prices, that governs the…
The euro fund and the bond ETF expose to the same raw material — rates — through two opposite channels. One smooths returns over time and reacts with a lag; the other tracks an index continuously and absorbs rises and…
A bond ETF’s maturity sets its duration, and therefore the size of its reaction to rates. Short, intermediate and long do not describe three levels of risk, but three distinct behaviours depending on the direction of real rates. TL;DR Maturity…
