Central banks are doing everything they can to make investors fear inflation. The US Federal Reserve expects to keep rates at zero until late 2014. The Bank of England is buying gilts. The European Central Bank is lending for three years against ever-weaker collateral. Even the Swiss are manipulating their currency.

The time is long gone when investors could protect against inflation on the cheap. The desire of UK pension funds for assets to match their liabilities has driven the 50-year inflation-linked gilt yield negative. In the US, Treasury inflation-protected securities hit new low yields last week. In spite of a small recovery the 10-year offers a real, after inflation, yield of minus 0.27 per cent.

An increasing number of investors are turning instead to equities. It is increasingly popular to prefer the shares of multinationals over less-secure government bonds. Not only are international revenues hard for governments to confiscate, but equities ought to protect against inflation too, since revenues (and profits) should rise as prices rise.