Stocks? Bear market, economy could be heading to recession. Real estate? Interest rates up, possible recession, prices could crash. Bonds? Interest rates going up and likely going much higher, horrible for bonds. Gold, gold miners, etc.? These are going down given the risk of recession. Are there ANY assets one can (relatively) safely park one's cash? If you just leave it cash you get raped by inflation. This really freaking sucks.
People will have to sell collectables to raise cash. I have bought and sold things such as Navajo weavings, indigenous pottery, guitars and Swiss watches, of course you need to know what you are doing.
%% Bear market \ inverses can do fine/ SoyUP. Community bank$ pays not much interest so[cd] buyer beware. Some cash = ok there. Good comments \but with the exception of overbuilt\overleveraged commercial RE; RE seldom if ever ''crashes'' except over leveraged FLA swamp land.By the way the old joke aboUt nitwits buying FLA, swamp RE sight unseen is a good joke, except when they drain the swamp then the buyer$ have the last laugh. I made plenty of money in the past buying RE/ most ''inVestor$ did not want = raw land............................................................................................................I would not buy RE if i had to live in over\regulated \overtaxed \ hi crime area RE like chicago.\NOT that all of Chicago is worth less\ but you get my point????????????????????????????????????????
There are numerous ways to bet against things (inverse ETFs, futures, options, etc.) but timing is important with these due to decay, expirations, etc. A simple example would be to buy TBT if you think bonds are going to perform poorly.
If you can invest for 8-12 years, farmland is relatively safe IMO and a decent inflation hedge. https://acretrader.com/investors https://farmtogether.com/why-farmland ***Additional 2-4% annually from land lease added to valuation changes below.
It's a little unclear whether you are looking to invest / long term trade (ie: assume risk in exchange for potential profits) or just protect capital as best as possible with minimal risk. If you are good at short term trading, there are obviously opportunities there. If you have an opinion on the future that you would like to express, there are obviously lots of ways to bet that rates will continue to go up, that equities will continue to deteriorate, that we'll see prolonged stagflation, etc, or any other prediction you may have. Since you don't talk about a firm prediction for what will happen and taking advantage of it (you list some predictions but without the conviction to trade them), I suspect you are looking for something as safe as possible for a portion of your assets. Perhaps you allocate a certain percentage of your capital to various categories, including long term safety, and trade with the rest. I don't know. I honestly think the safest you can get is CDs and you eat the loss on inflation. In other words, if you're looking for long term SAFETY, you lock in a small purchasing power loss due to inflation being higher than the return on the CD. Some countries also have inflation-indexed certificates (I'm not in the USA). For me (not USA), that would be ~8% inflation - 4% on a 1 year CD = -4% loss. Of course, inflation could turn out to be better or worse than 8% over the upcoming year, so even that -4% isn't risk free and ideally I would have a good prediction on the future path of inflation. And yes, for safely preserving capital without relying on being able to accurately predict the future (and accept the risk entailed), inflationary environments suck. Edit: If you can get a loan for an asset that isn't likely to deteriorate in value (eg: certain types of real estate, perhaps) and you have cash flow that is somewhat indexed to inflation (eg: a job with a reliable expectation your salary will rise to match inflation) then the cost of the loan payments depreciates relative to your purchasing power. Reading your post, though, I suspect this involves more predictions than you really want, but in inflationary environments this can be lucrative when done carefully.
I always wondered what conservatives thought they were conserving given that the laws of physics are immutable
Not sure you get raped by inflation, hauled into the bush and groped maybe but at least with cash you have something you can use immediately when an opportunity presents itself.