Consumer prices rise 0.5% in January, higher than expected as annual rate rises to 3%

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16. And when bond yields go up, bond prices go down. And Net Asset Values of bond funds go down

It is extremely very rare to see any mention of bonds here at DU, but it is almost universal advice from financial planners and financial pundits that older people should have a considerable allocation in bonds and other fixed income investments (e.g. money market funds and CDs). Jack Bogle of Vanguard used to say "your age in bonds", i.e. a 60-year-old should have 60% in fixed income investments (which include bonds) and 40% in equities.

Most investment advice on allocation that I've seen haven't been that extreme, but something equivalent to "your age in bonds minus 10" or minus 20 is what I've seen. In the latter case, a 60-year-old should have 40% in fixed income and 60% in equities.

I'm a little older and a little less conservative than that, with about 45% in fixed income and 55% in equities. Much of that 45% in fixed income is in intermediate-term bond funds. They have been about breakeven in total return in the last 4 years, but as far as purchasing power, they've been slaughtered.

Today's inflation report, as much as we like the political points we can make about the January jump, is a disaster for bond funds.

(Righties, BTW, will point out that Biden was president for 2/3 of January, and tRump only 1/3 of January. But the counterpoint is since they are claiming the stock market gains since the election (Nov. 5) as the "Trump trade", then for consistency, they should also claim the November, December, and January CPI's which were kinda crummy and rising as the graphs show.)

And my fixed-dollar-amount charitable gift annuity, a source of income about the same in size as my Social Security benefit, has been eroded 24% in purchasing power by inflation since Dec. 2016.