[OT]: High Yield Savings Accounts

I’d suggest one of two options for your cash to earn higher interest. Either go online and create an account at Treasury Direct, or open a brokerage account at Charles Schwab.

Treasury direct will allow you to purchase directly 4 week notes (or longer) and bonds with longer durations. Since this is cash you may need in an unforeseen pinch, I recommend purchasing only 4-8 week notes as their yields are at 5.45% and annualized at 5.7% or more (reinvested with interest). Once the note expires they’ll automatically returned to where you do your banking or you can auto renew to another 4 week or 8 week note by a push of the button.

If you prefer immediate liquidity of your cash, then direct it to a brokerage account (Schwab or fidelity), and once it has been deposited into your brokerage account simply by a short term etf like SGOV (1-3 month treasuries) or SHY (1-3 year treasuries). These are funds invested in US treasury notes and bills with a minute charge. The SGOV still gives me close to 5.4% ROR and the SHY is around 5%, but at least my 1-3 year duration on the SHY fund is guaranteed for a longer duration. You could go out further on the yield curve 7-10 years with IEF etf, but my guess is rates on the long end will rise so you’re better of sticking shorter duration. The problem with going to the online banks that offer higher yields on their money markets is that you’ll only get that rate for a minute until the fed decides to cut rates, which is about to happen soon(albeit only a 1/2 % or so). The treasury direct or brokerage account option will lock in your rate of return for a longer duration than those online banks, which will only have the high yield temporarily. The brokerage account funds on short term durations can be liquidated immediately for your needs, and the treasury direct option allows you to ladder out your amounts for differing periods in case you can’t wait too long for them to expire. Good luck, you got some homework but after a couple hours of research you’ll be getting 4-5% higher return on your cash.

You can still find CDs paying over 5%, just be sure to ladder them and keep about 20% in the highest yielding Money Market account you can find if you do that you’ll have a decent return
I’m not a big fan of Mutual Funds they cost too much, but you seem to have a handle on it, just be sure to rebalance periodically.

Motörhead this is just nonsense, just keep stuffing those dollar bills in strippers g-strings and you’ll get much better return than any bank can offer.

@Mate and @25 are correct. I have 60k in a high yield savings as my emergency fund. Anything is better than a crappy Bank of America savings. I can get to my high yield in 2 days. Some CDs let you withdraw at any time without penalty (most have penalty though) but the ladder keeps some of it ready at any time.

Invested in ETFs for the bulk of my money. Traditional mutual funds with high expense ratios not worth it. I play stock picker with a few hundred thousand. I'm pretty good with they mostly because I invest in what I know and the industry I've been in for 20+ years.

@Puddy_Tat I’m getting started with EFTs. I was all mutual fund in my 20s because my father and grandfather were. My grandfather left me one of his CDs.

^ Yeah over time the conventional wisdom is to shift to bonds. Retirement funds are all in Vanguard target date funds.

My brokerage account is mostly in SPY (index fund) with a bunch in FTEC (tech mutual fund) as well as some blue chips like JP Morgan, Microsoft, Tesla. A bunch of smaller companies as well... I've had better luck with smaller ones, a couple of whom had been 10-baggers.

Might withdraw a bunch to buy a house outright (chance I could be moving in a couple months).

Mate is right. I'm getting 5% on my savings right now, though there are deposit minimums in my bank.

I have had online HYSA for several years. 4+ % is nice compared to ~0 % at brick and mortar. I can usually ACH to my brick and mortar in 1 business day to use funds. I've never had a problem with the HYSA part of the equation. OT: what bit me was only having 1 debit card for ATM cash. My bank killed my debit card on the day I was leaving for a trip to a high mileage town. I now have two accounts with a debit card. Necessary redundancy.

I drive around town with my dad to take advantage of the best CD rates. We put 'em away at 12 or 18 month periods generally. Otherwise everything is in mutual funds of a wide variety at Vanguard, Fidelity, similar online houses. I have a simple stock-brokerage account at Fidelity too, but I seldom buy actual shares rather than mutual funds. I'm getting zero from the bank on checking or savings.

The Vanguard target-date funds have received a lot of negative scrutiny lately. Not so much because they're bad funds, they're doing fine with OK or good yield and reliability. It's more that they aren't true to the target-dates in their names, they have little to do with cashing out on such-and-so a date. My 401K is one of these but I might shift it. Vanguard has recently started charging a hefty fee for phone-transactions that could be done by internet, and that's pissing me off. Their computer access and online systems are garbage, though their funds seem to be good generally.

Oh forgot, ditto on the treasury-direct, it's the best-kept secret in American investing right now, can't figure out why they don't push it harder. All of us here at TUSCL are internet savvy, all you have to do is sign up and then start buying stuff.

I ladder CD's with Ally bank. Online only, generous rates (no physical branches to pay for), and they cover up to $10 bucks in ATM service fees every month (used to be unlimited when I opened an account.....). I use this account exclusively for laddering.

I use Schwab for day trading and no foreign transaction fees for cash.....but not for ultra conservative investments.

I use E-Trade for everything except my current employer's 401k which is in Fidelity. When I worked for a broker dealer back in the day, E-Trade was the only one their compliance allowed, so I've consolidated everything there.

I bonds through Treasury Direct.

Online savings through Ally.

I agree with treasury bills at treasurydirect.gov. Right now the 4, 8, 13, and 17 week T-Bills are paying the best: 5.35-5.40% interest. The longer term T-Bills like 26 week and 52 week are a little less. Perhaps, interest rates are expected to take a slight cut in the next six months.

CD's are around 5.15% for one year. For example, that is the top one year being offered by Goldman Sach's Marcus right now. Three and six month CD's can be found for around 5.25-5.35% at various small banks and credit unions.

I have been routinely buying gold on the dips. Bank of America has gold projected to be $3,000/ounce in the next twelve to eighteen months. With the end of the petrodollar (after fifty years), BRICS currency on the horizon, and endless dollar printing by our government, the dollar is going to continue to lose value. I am balanced in all three options I mentioned, but I feel the most confident in my precious metals holdings.

BMO Alto has a savings account offering 5.10%. Western Alliance Bank has a 5.36%. MyBankingDirect has 5.55%. All of these are FDIC insured.

BRICS was news to me, couldn't even get Google to define it for me without a little finagling. FYI: Brazil Russia India China South Africa (plus Iran Egypt Ethiopia UAE but their currencies aren't likely to be valuable for backing). I had set myself a deadline of 4th of July to rearrange some of my investments, now the local part fireworks went off this evening and I just looked at the damn calendar and realized I've missed it.

I like the idea of keeping cash at a good, reputable brokerage house like Fidelity or Schwab. I keep around $60K at Fidelity in my brokerage account. My cash was 3x higher a year ago then the Market started to look good back in early October and I moved to more stocks (quality stocks, not memes and I don't day trade). The Fidelity Cash account is at a 7-Day Yield of 4.95%. and has been stable at +/- 10BPS. Fidelity also moves Cash around to other cash holdings to ensure it is always FDIC protected while providing the Yield. And, I have no cybercurrency, while it is the wave of the future for me it is just too volatile. I stick to what I know.

I would worry about the new on-line Internet accounts as they don't have a track record.

Mate27 & Puddy did a really good analysis of available options.

@sinclair are you buying physical gold? Bars, coins? Or some kind of futures or ETF?

@mogul - thanks

I don't do crypto either. Curious about it but just don't trust it, not sure what underlies it or moves it. I don't invest in what I don't know.

Short answer: yes. The high yield interest rates offered by online banks make traditional money-market accounts and CDs obsolete. You can also use any ATM you want. No more hunting around for a Chase bank or whatever.

You can find occasional money market or CDs offering higher, but need to carefully weigh the risks and read the fine print before locking up your assets like that.

I am not a fan of gold and other commodities which traditionally shift value. Not only may the value be down when you need to sell, but good luck finding a physical gold buyer who won't be looking to fuck you.

Tech stocks are well known for their volatility. I used to be a proponent of "need" stocks like oil, plastics, and base chemicals, but even those have been extraordinarily volatile over the past 15 years.

Land is the only safe investment but, to make the big money, you have to go into big debt. I sold my Florida holdings while the selling was good. Interest rates are too high right now to buy more. I would advise moving your money into the highest yielding, easily liquid accounts you can find. This is definitely a "hold" economy.

"ditto on the treasury-direct, it's the best-kept secret in American investing right now, can't figure out why they don't push it harder."

Because they're selling $85 billion in 4 week bills at a single auction and a whole lot more across the whole curve. Money is flowing in from all corners of the earth and plenty from here at home. Anything from mom and pop would be a drop in the bucket. In short, plenty of demand already, no reason to push anything.

I think hard assets like land and precious metals will be the way to go. I don't know how long this AI hype runs until it's out of breath and tech comes crashing back to earth...just like in the late-90s everything dot-com got pumped to high heaven. Valuations are sky high. Commercial real estate is diving. Consumer debt is at an all time high. I don't know if it'll be an "October surprise" but that which can't go on forever, won't.

My online savings is strictly rainy day cash.

Honestly, if this site switched out political discussions for financial discussions it would be simultaneously more interesting, more useful, and more relevant.

^👍

@Ishmael - I might just start a stock/asset picking thread. Though I know it'll degenerate into flame wars too. Actually having a pretty good discussion over PM with someone here.

Anyone buying Tulips?
I hear there a run on them!😁

^ Tulips no, but a lot of us are buying two lips (on our dick).