Holding cash cuts risk while limiting returns

Article Excerpt

Cash can play a role in some investor portfolios, although they have to contend with low returns compared to most other asset classes. Nevertheless, some investors will hold a portion of their portfolios in cash to cover emergency expenses or to take advantage of market opportunities. Cash, as measured by short-dated U.S. dollar treasury bills, has provided a reasonable return over the long term. Not only does it offer a return somewhat higher than inflation, but it also has had very low volatility. That could be useful to help stabilize portfolio returns during volatile times (see table). Over the longer term, central banks have tended to keep interest policy rates above the rate of inflation—which ensured that cash returns remained positive in real terms. But that changed during the global financial crisis of 2008—and rates have remained below inflation for most of the subsequent 13 years. Despite the spike in central bank rates in 2022 to 2024, cash delivered poor returns over the…