Gold IRA for Inflation Protection - My Experience & Questions

• •Been thinking a lot about inflation lately, especially with all the talk about rising costs.
• •As a professor here in Richmond, my retirement planning tends to be pretty research-heavy.
• •My reasoning was pretty straightforward: fiat currency loses purchasing power, gold historically holds its value.

Been thinking a lot about inflation lately, especially with all the talk about rising costs. As a professor here in Richmond, my retirement planning tends to be pretty research-heavy. I've had a decent chunk of my portfolio, right around $300k, in a Gold IRA for the past five years now, specifically because I've always viewed it as a strong hedge against inflation. My reasoning was pretty straightforward: fiat currency loses purchasing power, gold historically holds its value. So far, it’s done okay, definitely not the explosive growth of some tech stocks, but it feels like a steady hand when everything else is fluctuating wildly.

My initial dive into it was after reading a few papers on monetary policy and historical asset performance during periods of high inflation in the 70s and early 80s. The data for gold was compelling enough for me to pull the trigger. I allocated about 15% of my total retirement assets to physical gold within the IRA, mainly American Gold Eagles and Canadian Gold Maples. I liked the tangible aspect of it, knowing that these are actual physical assets, not just numbers on a screen.

My question for the community here, especially those with more experience or different asset allocations: beyond just holding physical gold, what other strategies are people employing with their Gold IRAs specifically for inflation protection? Are any of you using gold-backed ETFs in a non-IRA account for liquidity? And within the IRA, are certain types of precious metals doing better than others? I've mostly stuck to gold but have considered adding some silver or platinum for further diversification, though the historical inflation hedge argument for those seems less robust than for gold.

The current economic climate feels different than anything I’ve studied before, with supply chain issues, geopolitical uncertainties, and massive government spending. While my gold holdings have provided a sense of security, part of me wonders if I should be doing more, or if I'm perhaps over-relying on one asset class. Anyone diversified into real estate within their IRA, or even commodities beyond precious metals, as an inflation play? Would love to hear some diverse perspectives beyond what I typically find in academic journals.