Here’s an interesting development. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is studying the idea of inflation linked bonds to assist investors in protecting their capital from inflation. It is actually a good time to look at it, as nominal interest rates are very low currently and coupled with inflation, results in negative real interest rates. What negative real interest rates simply means is that your money in interest bearing accounts are not keeping up with inflation and your purchasing power is getting reduced as time passes. Both bank interest rates and fixed deposit rates are very low currently, so cash/near cash rates will not be useful to beat inflation. We look at the next safest instrument, which would be Singapore Government Securities (SGS), 10 years – 1.4%, 20 years – 2%, 30 years – 2.4%. SGS are not too good either as the longest SGS bond is only equivalent ......