Inflation is surging. Here’s how to protect your money

The Ukraine war and surging inflation are creating new pressures and uncertainty on Canadians' stock portfolios, but experts have tips to skirt the market downturn.

With stocks taking a beating amid surging inflation rates and ongoing uncertainty tied to the war in Ukraine, market watchers say there are a few ways to prep your portfolio to withstand the current downturn.

The latest inflation numbers show prices accelerating across the board in Canada at rates not seen in more than 30 years. Economists say February’s headline inflation rate of 5.7 per cent is not the ceiling, citing the ongoing war in Ukraine as putting major pressure on goods of all kinds.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is about to enter its fourth week. Sanctions against Russia, supply chain disruptions and uncertainty surrounding the catastrophic conflict in eastern Europe — and the possibility it spreads beyond Ukraine’s borders — have sent global stock markets tumbling, worsening an already brutal start to 2022 for investors.

The S&P 500 is down more than 500 points, or 10 per cent, so far in 2022. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is also down more than eight per cent year-to-date.

Senior investment advisor Allan Small, who runs his own financial group under the iAP Private Wealth banner, says he’s gotten a flurry of questions from his clients since the attacks in Ukraine began.

He tells Global News the humanitarian concerns of Russia’s aggression are paramount, but says the financial ripple effects have become impossible to ignore.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of scared individual investors out there,” he says. “I think everyone’s wondering, you know, how low these markets can go?”

Surging inflation levels in Canada, the United States and beyond are raising costs not only for individual consumers, but for the companies underpinning global stock markets.