Money keeps growing — so do asset prices always follow? What Malaysia's data shows

If the money supply keeps growing, must asset prices follow?

Over the long run they move the same way, but there have been whole decades in which they did not. Gold is the clearest case: from 1980-01 to 2000-01 it fell from 675 to 284 USD per troy ounce, a ratio of ×0.421 or −57.9% in nominal terms. Over the same twenty years US M2 rose ×3.147 and US CPI rose ×2.171, so the real loss reached −80.6%. The money stock tripled and that asset’s holders were still behind two decades later.

Federal Reserve · H.6: M1 / M2

When the rate regime changes, the winning asset changes

The table below lines up four windows from the observations on file. It is a record, not a forecast.

What separates the second row from the third is not the quantity of money but its cost. The monthly average federal funds rate reached a high of 19.10% in 1981-06. When borrowing costs that much, an asset that produces no cash flow has to compete with a very high risk-free yield, and a growing monetary aggregate does not settle that contest on its own.

FRED · Federal Funds Effective Rate

What does Malaysia’s own data say?

Malaysia’s price record is long and consistent; its M2 record is short. Headline CPI (2010=100) rose from 40.2 in 1980-01 to 137.1 in 2026-07, a ratio of ×3.410 across 46 years.

The second half of the story is the ringgit, and it has reversed direction more than once: 2.4912/USD in 1997-01, 4.2101 in 2021-12, then 4.0687 in 2026-08. The recent strength is a useful reminder that a currency’s long slide is not a law of nature. Put next to the global regime evidence above, the pair says the same thing twice: an asset can lose for twenty years, and a currency can turn back.

DOSM · Malaysia headline CPI · Bank Negara Malaysia · Monthly Highlights and Statistics

What is actually observed right now?

The citable fact is the FOMC decision of 2026-07-29: the target range was held at 3.50–3.75%, with three members dissenting in favour of a hike (Hammack, Kashkari, Logan). That is the whole of the record. This page does not guess at the next move and makes no rate projection for any market.

Federal Reserve · FOMC calendars and statements

So is buying earlier still the better answer?

The break-even is your cost of funding, not the size of a monetary aggregate. If an asset is bought with borrowed money, the rate paid has to be compared with that asset’s growth over the same months, after transaction costs and taxes. The 1980–2000 window shows that a growing money stock does not guarantee rising asset prices over the period that matters to one person. Enter your own start and end months in the calculator, then read the source notes before drawing a conclusion.

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