Inflation and individual equities

Since 1990, stocks with strong inflation-hedging abilities have had higher average returns than stocks with low inflation betas and have tended to be drawn from the technology and oil/gas sectors. The authors found substantial time variation among stock inflation betas, which makes it difficult to construct portfolios from stocks that are strong out-of-sample inflation hedges. This finding holds for sector portfolios, portfolios constructed on past-inflation betas, and portfolios constructed from high-dividend-paying stocks.