Gold and Tips
Some analysts claim that when the price of gold strongly increases relative to TIPs then it is trading at a premium and could decline. This is generally true. However when the stock market is bearish, and once gold and the miners bottom during the general bear market, gold can make a strong advance and maintain a strong price relative to TIPs for possibly three years (using the 2008/09 bear market as a guide).
Gold is not much better than the general market for an inflation hedge. But in times of greater uncertainty (like the last 2008 bear), gold and gold miners outperform everything after they bottom in the first major downward leg of the overall bear market. The divergence between TIPS and gold occured then as it is occuring at the time of writing this: January 11th, 2023.
We have weekly and daily demark sequential 9 sells in gold today. So, gold could narrow the gap between itself and TIP in the weeks ahead. If the 2008/09 bear market is a guide then gold should subsequently widen the gap again after it bottoms in the weeks ahead (if the demark 9 catches this interim top).