Yes, to a degree, but unfortunately not as well in/from Singapore. Allow me to educate you on something you are evidently not aware of!
Some sovereigns offer what are known as "real return bonds," a.k.a.
inflation-indexed bonds. Examples include
U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) and a particular type of U.S. Savings Bond: the
I-Bond. There are some real return bonds available in certain other currencies, too. (Governments in Canada, Australia, the U.K., France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, and some other governments issue them in their respective currencies.) And there's an active index fund market in many of them, especially in U.S. dollars, euro, and British pounds, making it very easy to hold an assortment of real return bonds.
If you hold a basket of real return bonds across various currencies, you can do
pretty well from a Singapore dollar perspective given how MAS manages the Singapore dollar, as a loose peg to an unpublished basket of Singapore trade-weighted foreign currencies.
There are also some private life annuity purveyors that'll sell Consumer Price Index (CPI) linked annuities pegged to a particular currency's inflation, if you wish. I think Principal Financial is one of them (U.S. dollars in that case).
Direct inflation linking is great, because it most directly combats inflation. There's no ambiguity, no imperfection. Whatever inflation is (in the chosen currency), the real return bond and/or real annuity perfectly track(s) it and automatically adjust(s). Real return bonds and real return annuities are not generally something you should pursue with your
entire accumulated wealth, but for a portion it can make a great deal of sense. And it just so happens I actually do this (real return bonds), in an appropriate portion.
Unfortunately, the Singapore government doesn't issue real return bonds (doesn't believe in them I guess), or real return anything. This is, for better or worse, the Singapore government's standard operating style. This government wants to maintain full freedom of movement, to use inflation as a policy tool if/when necessary. As a private individual, I certainly don't like that. But that's how this particular government rolls.
So, in Singapore in Singapore dollars, the best you can probably do is a fixed escalating life annuity (CPF LIFE Escalating Plan, which is part of my plan as carefully and repeatedly explained) and other, less direct Singapore dollar inflation fighters. As other examples, equities do a pretty good job fighting inflation, but holding too many equities (too high a percentage) is problematic for retirees. Short-term bond funds also do pretty well, but that too is difficult (at best) in Singapore dollars since the bond market is too thin, and real yields are low. Carefully constructed and managed fixed deposit and/or T-bill ladders are possible, but they're a lot of work and also have low real yields.
