A while back I moved a portion of my wealth into inflation protected bonds as I needed a store of value that could preserve my purchasing power through the current high rates of inflation we were seeing. I ended up buying VTIP, the Vanguard ETF with TIPS of 2.5 year average maturity.
I am struggling to understand how its price is tracking with inflation and rates/yields. So far it's been fairly flat i.e. hasn't really gone up in value to track the high rates of inflation of 2021 and all I'm seeing is now they lose value in response to rates rising. While I expected the latter and kept the maturity at 2.5 years to cap interest-rate related drawdowns, I am not understanding the former.
Would appreciate any insights on this. I had a specific goal in purchasing this TIPS ETF and I have unfortunately failed :(