click to close
help
edit

Forums
Finance

Currently I Bond Interest is 4.28%. Good time to invest some money? Archived From: Finance

  • Text Only
  • Search this Topic »
  • switch to 'Classic' view
  • Go to Page :
  • 1 234
alert mods    

I think it is time again to invest in I Bond. Current rate is 4.28 which is much attractive than CD rates. Inflation is keep going (will help to increase the rate). But next month (May 01) fixed rate may come down. So Apr end is perfect time to park some money in I Bond IMHO.

What you guys think?

First 6 months 4.28% and next 6 months will be 6.07%. Very good return for current market.


Bond Calculator

Rate changes table

I Bond Tutorial

Previous thread for more info

Strategy: Gov't I bonds as a good 11 month investment: 4%+ returns likely

 

Update:
$10K limit/year. $5K paper, $5K electronic.(Thanks to lhendricks92)

TIPS, Savings Bonds & Regular Treasuries(Thanks to ThursdaysChild)

BankDeals - Next I Bond Inflation Component Will Be 4.83%!! take advantage of them (Thanks to ThursdaysChild]

My Money Blog - I Bonds(Thanks to MoreMonies)

Strategy: April'08 I bonds as a good 14 month investment: 4.4%+ returns (Thanks to xerty)

Quick Summary is created and edited by users like you... Add FAQ's, Links and other Relevant Information by clicking the edit button in the lower right hand corner of this message.

alert mods    

By "some money," you mean "not much."

$10K limit/year. $5K paper, $5K electronic.

edit: looks like there are some loopholes. my bad, should have read the linked thread instead of being a wise ass.

alert mods    

I buy these almost monthly and have for some time now. Always buy them close to the end of the month 27th-28th and you will receive interest for that entire month, increasing the yeild a bit.

alert mods    

Unfortunately, the Fed is not entirely honest with its inflation rate calculations. Hopefully market pressures will force the increase in bond rates. (Alternate Data )

alert mods    

I don't know anything about savings bonds, so please excuse my dumb question:
I've been looking at the TD website, and I saw a reference to series I bonds:
"When can I cash (redeem) an I Bond if I need the money?

You can cash your Series I bonds anytime after 12 months. You receive the original purchase price plus interest earnings. I Bonds are meant to be longer-term investments; if you redeem an I Bond within the first 5 years, you'll lose your last 3 months interest."
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds_ifaq.htm

But, then I can't find anything else out about Series I bonds. Can anyone please explain? thanks

alert mods    

For information on I Bonds, start by looking at mariojm's Original Post in his thread on TIPS, Savings Bonds & Regular Treasuries. He's written some very good explanations and has some useful links.

Edit: here's another useful FWF thread.

alert mods    

The post was removed

alert mods    

Man.. I miss the days when I would have bought with them a credit card....

alert mods    

Discount8 said:Now the stock market is closed to the very bottom, see why the market is closed to bottom. It is better to invest money to stock verse bond.

Cool, why don't you set up a fund, pay me a guaranteed 10% interest and you can keep all of the profits you make since you are able to predict the stock market?

alert mods    

Discount8 said:Now the stock market is closed to the very bottom, see why the market is closed to bottom. It is better to invest money to stock verse bond.

In English we say, "close to bottom," not "closed to bottom." But thanks so much for your really great link...not.

alert mods    

Thanks for the correction and great English! Please ignore the link. It was posted in a rush by mistake.

alert mods    

Wait until Wed morning and we can see what the inflation numbers are for March. Then the whole first year of the I bonds returns will be known. I'm thinking about 3.5% for the March inflation number myself...

alert mods    

xerty said:Wait until Wed morning and we can see what the inflation numbers are for March. Then the whole first year of the I bonds returns will be known. I'm thinking about 3.5% for the March inflation number myself...

Can you elaborate a bit on this? The current rate is 4.28 right? So that is at least the return you will get for the entire year, right? When the March numbers come out we will just have a better understanding of what waiting to buy would give us, right?

alert mods    

cjchaps said:xerty said:Wait until Wed morning and we can see what the inflation numbers are for March. Then the whole first year of the I bonds returns will be known. I'm thinking about 3.5% for the March inflation number myself...

Can you elaborate a bit on this? The current rate is 4.28 right? So that is at least the return you will get for the entire year, right? When the March numbers come out we will just have a better understanding of what waiting to buy would give us, right?

No, it would only "lock in" that 4.28 rate for 6 months.....when the next 6 month period starts, you will get whatever the May rate is (for the next 6 months from that point).....that's how it works.....

alert mods    

craig10x said:No, it would only "lock in" that 4.28 rate for 6 months.....when the next 6 month period starts, you will get whatever the May rate is (for the next 6 months from that point).....that's how it works.....
The 4.28% is for the first 6 months from when you buy the bond (assuming you buy before May). The rate for the next 6 months after that ("the May rate") will be fully determined by the CPI numbers released tomorrow morning so you'll know it two weeks before May actually shows up.

alert mods    

reuv said:Unfortunately, the Fed is not entirely honest with its inflation rate calculations. Hopefully market pressures will force the increase in bond rates. (Alternate Data )

The Fed doesn't calculate the CPI. The BLS does. Its calculation is entirely transparent and you can replicate it yourself. So how can you say they aren't "honest"?

alert mods    

English is the second language of 36 Million US citizens. Average earnings of that 36 million is way above earnings of average American. Hardly ever their old parents have to live in nursing homes and they have very low divorce rate. There is a 30% chance that your children will never visit you at the nursing home.
So there is no real reason for you to be proud of your language skills.
It would have been much appreciated if you had point out the mistake without discouraging people to post. There was much struggle to post this message because of the fear of picking on grammatical errors.

 

ScrawneyWallet said:Discount8 said:Now the stock market is closed to the very bottom, see why the market is closed to bottom. It is better to invest money to stock verse bond.

In English we say, "close to bottom," not "closed to bottom." But thanks so much for your really great link...not.

alert mods    

What the author is referring to is the changes in CPI calculation from Greenspan's (aka the Fed) criticism in the early 90's.

http://www.geostrategymap.com/freepdfs/Gold/g_CPI_Criticism.pdf

However, even including these effects the current CPI will still be high (look to the PPI which just came out for indications on where it will be).

People who wear tin foil hats often suspect the reason the Fed did this was to "save social security" since that entitlement is indexed to CPI.

We should suspect that the inflation component of the I-bond will go up in May but there is no reason to buy until we get the official numbers. Since YOY PPI was up 6.9% the CPI component of the I-bond should probably be up 1-2% versus the last period.

alert mods    

"[...] There is one last “trick” with I-Bonds, and it is that if you buy at the end of the month, you’ll still get all the interest for the entire month as if you bought it in the beginning of the month. Let’s say we buy at the end of March (this week!), hold for the minimum of one year, and pay the 3-month interest penalty. You’ll be able to sell on March 1, 2009 for an actual holding period of 11 months"

More importantly, there are reports of people still being able to buy $30,000 worth of I-bonds online even though it says $5,000 paper/$5,000 online max.

My Money Blog - I Bonds

 Close

Sign Me In
Nickname: 
Password: 
Remember My Login Information:

Forget your login information?

Not Already A Member?
Sign Up Now!



Disclaimer: By providing links to other sites, FatWallet.com does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to FatWallet.com.