What did Paul Tudor Jones's 2020 inflation letter say?
The letter argued that central-bank money creation after Covid-19 could become inflationary and ranked nine possible hedges by recent price performance. It carries the byline of Paul Jones and Lorenzo Giorgianni under a macro market outlook heading (letter, page 1). It cited $3.9 trillion of quantitative easing since February 2020, or 6.6% of global GDP.
The ranking, which the authors called the "Inflation Race", averaged 1-week, 1-month, 3-month and 12-month returns. Returns were measured in units of average 60-day true ranges, roughly one day's trading range each, rather than in percent (page 5, Table 1).
| Inflation trade (6 May 2020) | Average | Last year |
|---|
| Gold | 7.8 | 25.9 |
| Yield curve (long 2-year, short 30-year) | 5.1 | 10.3 |
| Nasdaq 100 | 2.3 | 11.4 |
| Bitcoin | 0.8 | 2.9 |
| US equity cyclicals/defensive | 0.2 | -4.8 |
| AUDJPY | -5.1 | -12.8 |
| JPM Emerging Market Currency Index | -6.0 | -13.6 |
| TIPS breakevens | -8.1 | -19.9 |
| GSCI commodity index | -10.4 | -24.1 |
The letter states that "gold is the clear winner of the Inflation Race at this time". TIPS breakevens and the GSCI, the two instruments most directly tied to consumer and commodity prices, came last, with the GSCI hit by the oil crash.
How did Tudor score gold, bitcoin, cash and financial assets as stores of value?
Tudor's research group scored four stores of value out of 100, and bitcoin came last. The weights were 30% for purchasing power, 30% for trustworthiness, 20% for liquidity and 20% for portability (page 7). The letter calls the result a "composite and highly-subjective value".
May 2020 scores out of 100: financial assets 71; gold 62; fiat cash 54; bitcoin 43. Source: Tudor BVI market outlook, May 2020, PDF page 7, Table 3; chart data (CSV). The scores are opinions from one poll of Tudor staff, not measured returns. They say nothing about how each asset performed after May 2020.
The bullish case came from comparing scores with size. Jones compared bitcoin's subjective score with its market value, which he put at 1/60th of gold's, and concluded "my guess is it is the price of Bitcoin" (page 8). On which store of value would be the winner in ten years, he wrote: "If I am forced to forecast, my bet is it will be Bitcoin" (page 6).
A common summary says the letter named bitcoin the best inflation hedge. The letter itself ranked bitcoin fourth on momentum and last on the scorecard; the "best inflation trade" line came later, on CNBC on 22 October 2020.
How much bitcoin did Paul Tudor Jones own?
The letter set a ceiling, not a holding: an "initial maximum exposure guideline for purchasing Bitcoin futures to a low single digit exposure percentage of Tudor BVI's net assets" (page 8). On 22 October 2020 he told CNBC he held a "small single-digit investment".
His most quoted allocation came on 14 June 2021, when he described what he tells employees who ask about their own portfolios. He said he would want "5% in gold, 5% in bitcoin, 5% in cash, 5% in commodities", and that he did not know what to do with "the other 80%". That is a personal heuristic stated in one interview, not a disclosed allocation of any Tudor fund. On 15 May 2023 he described bitcoin as "a small diversification in my portfolio".
Tudor's 13F filings show a much smaller bitcoin ETF shareholding than in 2024. Its 13F reported 4,428,230 shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), valued at $160.0m, at 30 September 2024. At 30 June 2026 the share line was 688,529 shares valued at $22.9m, and the filing also listed IBIT puts and calls. Bitcoin futures and direct holdings do not appear on a 13F, so this is not Tudor's total bitcoin exposure.
What has he said about inflation, bonds and AI since 2024?
His public statements since 2024 favour the same inflation-hedge basket over long bonds. On 22 October 2024 he told CNBC "I think all roads lead to inflation", that he was long gold, bitcoin and commodities, and that young investors find inflation hedges in the Nasdaq. He added: "I am clearly not going to own any fixed income, and I'm going to be short the back end of fixed income".
On 6 October 2025 he compared markets to 1999 and said he would want "a combination of gold, crypto, probably the Nasdaq". He called sovereign debt "the biggest bubble that we have". On 7 May 2026 he said the AI bull market had "another year or two to run", that he had added to AI investments, and: "I'm a macro trader, so I just buy baskets".
His latest stated view is more defensive. On 13 October 2026 he said "2027 is going to be really, really challenging for the stock market", citing heavy IPO supply and the US deficit. He said he was long oil and, of 2027, "I'll be short the whole year". These are statements of his views and trading intentions, not forecasts by copio.
What is Paul Tudor Jones's 200-day moving average rule?
The rule is to treat a price below its 200-day moving average as a warning and cut exposure. In his interview for Tony Robbins's book "Money: Master the Game" (2014), as reproduced by Trend Following, he said: "My metric for everything I look at is the 200-day moving average of closing prices." In the same passage: "You play defense, and you get out." He also described a 5:1 reward-to-risk target, so that he could be wrong 80% of the time and still not lose.
He repeated the rule on CNBC on 6 October 2025, linking it to humility about how often he is wrong. His words: "nothing good ever happens under the 200 day moving average in any asset" (transcript).
The rule is tied to his 1987 reputation. CNBC describes him as having predicted and profited from the October 1987 crash. In the Robbins excerpt he said the market had fallen below its 200-day average and that "At the very top of the crash, I was flat."
What does Tudor Investment's latest 13F show?
Tudor's latest 13F, for 30 June 2026 and filed on 14 August 2026, lists 3,458 lines valued at $71.9bn, and most of that value is options. SEC guidance says option lines describe the underlying security (Form 13F FAQ 44), so the values below are the market value of the underlying shares, not what Tudor paid for the options.
At 30 June 2026: put options 40.8%; shares and ETFs 33.7%; call options 25.5% of reported 13F value. Source: Tudor Investment Corp et al, Form 13F-HR, information table; chart data (CSV). The split does not show whether an option was bought as a hedge, as part of a spread or as a directional bet. It also omits futures, currencies, most bonds, cash, shorts and most non-US positions.
| 13F line at 30 June 2026 | Type | Reported value | Share of reported 13F value |
|---|
| iShares Russell 2000 ETF | Puts | $9.23bn | 12.8% |
| Invesco QQQ Trust | Calls | $3.55bn | 4.9% |
| Invesco QQQ Trust | Puts | $3.49bn | 4.8% |
| iShares Russell 2000 ETF | Calls | $2.91bn | 4.0% |
| iShares Core S&P 500 ETF | Shares | $1.21bn | 1.7% |
| SPDR Gold Shares | Calls | $1.08bn | 1.5% |
| Taiwan Semiconductor ADR | Puts | $1.05bn | 1.5% |
| Micron Technology | Puts | $0.82bn | 1.1% |
| Nvidia | Puts | $0.80bn | 1.1% |
| iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF | Puts | $0.80bn | 1.1% |
Gold appears mainly through options: $1.08bn of SPDR Gold Shares calls and $0.57bn of puts, against $96.9m of shares. The largest direct share lines were the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, Taiwan Semiconductor ($654m) and Microsoft ($624m). The filing also lists $579m of calls on an iShares long Treasury bond fund (listed as "20 YR TR BD ETF"), a reminder that a single listed line cannot be read against his stated view on long bonds without the futures and rates book.
The 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end and mainly covers US-listed long equities and certain listed options. For scale, Tudor's Form ADV filed on 2 October 2026 reports $106.8bn of regulatory assets under management, a regulatory measure rather than net investor capital.
The Tudor BVI Global Portfolio, the master fund behind the Tudor BVI feeder funds, reports a gross asset value of $50.2bn. None of these figures is a net-asset breakdown of the macro book. The same reporting rule makes Michael Burry's last Scion filing easy to misread; see Michael Burry's portfolio strategy.
Are inflation hedges a conservative portfolio allocation?
Inflation hedges address purchasing-power risks, but they can still fall during an equity crash. Jones's May 2020 ranking used recent price movements, while his 200-day rule describes when to reduce exposure. Neither establishes a contractual crash payout or a complete allocation optimised for geometric growth.
Copio evaluates inflation exposure and exit rules against expected long-term compound growth of the entire portfolio after costs. We believe cost-controlled convex protection offers a separate way to generate gains during a covered crash while retaining a growth allocation. Its case depends on premiums, the underlying exposure and reinvestment, rather than a market forecast or a strong historical ranking. Our inflation-resilient portfolio allocation guide distinguishes protection against inflation, reducing exposure and explicit crash hedging.
What can an individual investor learn from Paul Tudor Jones?
Jones's public statements do not specify a complete model portfolio. His 2020 letter ranked recent price performance; TIPS breakevens and the GSCI commodity index came last in that snapshot. The contrast with Ray Dalio's All Weather approach, which balances risk across growth and inflation environments, concerns how the allocation responds to changing conditions.
Which of your holdings would lose value if inflation rose and bond yields climbed, as they did in the 1970s and in 2022? Do you have a written rule, like his 200-day test, for when you cut exposure, or does the decision depend on mood? And how large is each position relative to what you can afford to lose, which is the question behind his 5:1 target?
Fellow macro investor Stanley Druckenmiller and tail hedger Mark Spitznagel answer the defence question differently. For the cost of insuring an equity portfolio with options, see what the data shows about put options. A hedge fund using futures, options and leverage with a full-time team cannot be copied with a handful of retail funds.
FAQ
What did Paul Tudor Jones say about inflation hedges in 2020?
In his May 2020 letter The Great Monetary Inflation, Paul Tudor Jones and Lorenzo Giorgianni ranked nine inflation trades by recent volatility-adjusted performance. On the 6 May 2020 snapshot, gold came first with an average of 7.8, the 2s30s yield curve second, the Nasdaq 100 third and bitcoin fourth at 0.8; the GSCI commodity index came last at -10.4.
How much bitcoin did Paul Tudor Jones own?
The May 2020 letter set an initial maximum exposure guideline for bitcoin futures of a low single-digit percentage of Tudor BVI's net assets; it was a cap, not a disclosed position. In October 2020 he told CNBC he held a small single-digit investment. Tudor's 13F showed 4,428,230 shares of the iShares Bitcoin Trust at 30 September 2024 and 688,529 shares at 30 June 2026.
What is Paul Tudor Jones's 200-day moving average rule?
Paul Tudor Jones uses the 200-day moving average of prices as his test of the trend. On CNBC on 6 October 2025 he said that nothing good ever happens under the 200-day moving average in any asset. In his interview for Tony Robbins's 2014 book, he tied it to avoiding losing everything: play defence and get out.
What does Tudor Investment's latest 13F show?
Tudor's 13F for 30 June 2026, filed on 14 August 2026, reported 3,458 lines valued at $71.9bn. Put options made up 40.8% of reported 13F value, shares and ETFs 33.7% and call options 25.5%, with options valued at the underlying shares. The filing excludes the futures, currencies, rates and short positions at the core of a macro fund.
Is an inflation-resilient portfolio the same as a conservative portfolio?
Inflation protection and equity-crash protection address different risks. Jones's May 2020 ranking measured recent price performance, and his 200-day rule describes reducing exposure rather than a contractual crash payoff. Copio assesses both through expected whole-portfolio geometric growth after costs, alongside explicit, cost-controlled downside protection.
