[Bhurn00985]

When you say emergency fund, I expect you want as little investment risk as possible.

In that case, I do not believe there's any options that are better than a savings account in terms of reduced risk and immediate availability of the money when needed.

In theory, you could say that a higher return is the risk premium you demand. Turning that around, higher returns means the product is more risky, and thus a bad fit for an emergency fund. Even with inflation a lot lower in the past years, a savings account still didn't exceed inflation in terms of return.

Traditionally, stocks have been a good hedge against inflation, but especially in the current market there's a lot of volatility which is not a good fit for emergency funds.

I have personally reduced my emergency fund to a level I'm still comfortable with, with the rest of my savings in investments. And frankly, my emergency fund is just a small part of my total net worth, it's OK if that part loses some purchasing power over time because it's optimized for other goals, like immediate availability, and a more predictable loss of value over time.