Research
Tracking BlackRock's iShares TIPS Bond Exchange Traded Fund
Today's TIP price and percent change.
Pulled from NYSE Arca. Data may be delayed.
Black Rock's TIP is a fund that invests in Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, also known as TIPS.
Introduction
We track the iShares TIPS Bond ETF (ticker: TIP) as a compact, market-priced summary of two macro variables that matter for household balance sheets: inflation compensation and real interest rates. TIP holds U.S. Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS) and is designed to follow an index of inflation-linked Treasury bonds.
What TIP Is Actually “Measuring”
TIPS are U.S. Treasury bonds whose principal is adjusted by a consumer inflation index; interest is paid on that inflation-adjusted principal, and at maturity the investor receives at least the original principal amount (even after deflation episodes). In practice, TIP converts that underlying structure into a continuously traded price that reflects how investors are currently valuing inflation protection and the real yield available on inflation-linked Treasuries.
How We Interpret The Price
When we look at TIP’s price level, we treat it as a real-rate sensitive instrument. TIP’s portfolio has a measurable interest-rate duration (recently in the mid-6-year range), meaning that changes in real yields can move the ETF price in a fairly predictable direction: higher real yields generally pressure prices; lower real yields generally support them.
We also separate bond math from market microstructure. ETFs can trade slightly away from the value of their holdings (net asset value) because they trade on exchanges, and those small premiums/discounts can widen in fast markets or thin liquidity. So we pay attention to whether TIP is trading close to NAV before we infer anything about the underlying TIPS market.
TIP can help us see whether markets are acting like inflation protection is getting more valuable and whether “real” borrowing conditions are getting tighter or looser.
How We Interpret The Rate of Change
We don’t just look at where TIP is we look at how quickly it got there. The first difference (day-to-day change) and the multi-week trend contain different information:
Short-horizon moves can reflect data releases, positioning, liquidity, or risk-off/risk-on flows that temporarily reprice real yields.
Persistent moves are more consistent with a regime shift in real rates and/or inflation compensation.
Conceptually, TIP’s rate of change helps us do signal extraction: is the market repricing real borrowing conditions (real yields), repricing expected inflation, or repricing risk and liquidity premia that sit on top of both?
A useful macro cross-check is the breakeven inflation idea: the yield difference between nominal Treasuries and TIPS is commonly used as a market-based gauge of inflation compensation (though it also embeds risk and liquidity effects). We don’t treat TIP as a clean readout of “true inflation expectations,” but we do treat it as a disciplined, continuously updated market estimate of what investors demand to hold inflation-linked cash flows.
How The Data May Help Clients
We use TIP as context, not as a neighborhood forecast. Specifically, we use it to frame discussions about:
Financing conditions in real terms. TIP is sensitive to real yields, which are one component of broader rate conditions. If the market reprices real yields upward, affordability math can tighten even if nominal rates move less, and vice versa.
Inflation regime risk. Persistent moves in TIP and related measures can indicate that inflation protection is being repriced, useful when clients are thinking about the purchasing power of future housing costs, renovation budgets, insurance, and long-run household cash flows.
Scenario analysis rather than point prediction. We translate macro moves into ranges and stress tests (e.g., “if real rates stay higher for longer, what does that do to monthly payment sensitivity?”). The output is a decision framework, not a market call.
Why TIP Can’t Justify Neighborhood-Level Conclusions
Even if TIP were a perfect macro measure (it isn’t), real estate is a spatially segmented market. Prices and transaction velocity are shaped by local supply constraints, permitting and zoning, school catchments, commute patterns, household formation, investor concentration, and idiosyncratic inventory, factors that do not aggregate neatly to a single national signal.
There’s also a measurement mismatch: TIP is linked to CPI-based inflation indexation through TIPS. But CPI’s shelter component is designed to measure the cost of housing services (rent and owners’ equivalent rent), not house prices, and it can evolve differently across regions and over time. That makes TIP a meaningful macro instrument while still being an unreliable basis for claims like “homes in this neighborhood will rise/fall next quarter.”
How We Use TIP
We use TIP like a financial thermometer: it helps us see whether markets are acting like inflation protection is getting more valuable and whether “real” borrowing conditions are getting tighter or looser. We focus on the direction and the pace of the move, then use that to run calmer, more practical affordability scenarios and to set expectations about the broader rate backdrop, without pretending it tells us what any one street or school zone will do.
How TIP Should Not Be Used
TIP cannot be used as a shortcut for neighborhood insight. A city can have strong demand, limited listings, and price resilience even when macro inflation signals soften, and another area can stagnate even when inflation protection prices improve. Local inventory, local preferences, and local constraints dominate. TIP can inform the weather report; it can’t tell you which block will get sunshine.
