In June, the bond market pushed yields up to yearly highs for most terms. The 10-year treasury jumped above 4%. It has since fallen back to 3.50%. The higher rates gave many concern that the housing recovery would be further delayed. With the 10-year back down, that worry seems to be diminishing. However, today the unemployment rate continued to sneak up to 10%. I believe in the state of California it is hovering around 12%.
Additionally, commodities began to move up, especially oil. As a result, gas prices increased to around $2.50 per gallon. In California, they have moved up to 2.95%. Leave it to California. Earlier in the week, California got the A-OK to put even more stringent standards on the books. That is not going to help California’s recovery. Now, CAs big budget fight is spilling over to issuing IOUs.
The APY
The economic news that has been released over the last few days has not been hopeful. As a result, most feel the low Fed Funds rates will linger for some time and we’ve seen yields falling again. Especially for terms of 2-years or less. But, even some of the longer-rates have decreased.
The APR
The APR is used for calculating the expected earnings from CD investments wherein the investor opted to get monthly interest payments. However, in the same way that people should not always go for the CD provider that offers the higher APY, investors should also do the same thing with APR’s. This is because the frequency by which a bank would compound the interest to determine how much an investor earns every month also determines the amount of earnings an investor gets.
Make sure to have some of your money invested in cash instruments for emergencies (ie., savings accounts, money markets). If you are making certificate of deposit investments, make sure they are FDIC insured (banks) or NCUA insured (credit unions).
Moreover, comparing the soundness of the bank or credit union is a good idea. With so many banks in a troubled state, you don’t want to take the time to do a CD and have it closed a short-time later. On July 2, the FDIC closed seven banks and they closed five banks the week prior to that.
Colin owns a High Interest CD website where you can compare CD rates and learn about banking.