Just opened a 2.3% 14-month with INOVA (reasonably close), but what do others think? My tummy tells me to shorten ladders in this rising-rate environment.
Its difficult or impossible for me to predict rates but I have too much cash and I'm afraid or unwilling to invest it in stocks.
I bought a few low fee mutual funds/etf's from Fidelity and am adding to them every month but I bought the minimum for the lowest fee, $10,000 and Im only adding about $150 a month to each.
Given my age, I really should not have as much cash as I do.
The funds I bought were FSSVX, FPMAX and FSCKX. Fidelity has a list of 20-30 funds where their fees are lower than vanguards. I should probably be adding more like $500-2000 per month and think about the longer term.
Bozo, I'm not a resident of CA and obviously do not know if your personal living circumstances qualified you. But I seem to recall, several months ago or more (not sure), there was a 3% add-on CD deal in CA which might have been close to you. OMG I would have done back flips to get that deal. And, as is usually the case with such add-on CD deals, you only had to invest a small amount at the front end in order to open the account and guarantee yourself 3% over the next three years on ensuing deposits. So sweet!! I wish we had offerings like that where I live! Only in CA, I guess. But a good home for some of that excess cash if you had the account.
Still thinking about that 3% CA special, though. Guess it is long gone now. Did a little sleuthing. It was called 1st United CU, I believe. Anybody who has that one has fallen into a buttertub. :-)
Your INOVA bet places return of whatever funds you have invested out beyond November of this year, a critical juncture IMO. American prospects could head south in a MAJOR way beginning in November. Some wags are even forecasting a recession, and I certainly do not disagree.
But the uncertainty before November, coupled with friendliness (to us savers) at the Fed, could provide us some opportunities for decent CDs prior to a potential November turning point. So for me personally, and for me only, I'm sitting on some dry powder between now and then, awaiting hoped-for positive opportunities going into this spring and early summer. If those opportunities fail to materialize, the joke will be on me. At least I'll still have the 3% stuff at the other end of my barbell as consolation. ;-)
All the above, Bozo, a product of my personal analysis of our American economy. But I see positive prospects reliant on a thin reed of hope and optimism, non-existent prior to November of 2016, bolstered then, but today once again under serious threat. Should that national optimism wither and die this fall, interest rates IMO will shrivel rapidly in reaction as clouds and darkness descend over our economy and traditional American risk-taking again morphs into self-preservation.
I have no idea how things will turn out in the fall. But the moment I believe matters are heading south, if that happens and whenever that might happen, I will be piling every cent I have into any remaining available long CDs. And, yes, that includes even the MACU variety of "three for five" stuff which I today would not touch with a ten foot pole. This because it could be a rather prolonged CD "dry spell" for savers if what might happen in November, actually happens.
"it is clear that U.S. stock returns have been much better when a Democrat was the president; however, it would be a mistake to conclude that stock returns were higher because a Democrat held the presidency"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlazaroff/2016/07/26/democrats-vs-republicans-who-is-better-for-the-stock-market/#3352ccde239d
Kaight, correct, and it was by design. The funds will constitute my IRA RMD for 2019.
