2007 4-Week T-Bill Rates: The Complete Picture
When 2007 began, the rates of the 4-week T-bill were very attractive, with returns as high as 5.4% APY. Before FNBO Direct launched their 6.0% APY promotional rate early last year, 4-week T-bills were my main short-term investment vehicle for the good returns and automatic investments that were very easy to manage.
However, things started to turn ugly in the summer and the interest rates couldn’t keep pace with major online banks. When the current cycle of rate reductions began, the 4-week T-bill’s rate just kept dropping like a rock, at a much faster speed than online banks lowering their interest rates. When 2007 ended, the investment rate of 4-week T-bills barely stayed above 3.0% APR level.
I dumped our investments in T-bills in early June and am glad I did. Now with the Fed expected to cut its benchmark interest rate again late this month, yields of online savings accounts will move lower. Pretty soon, 5.0+% APY will become history (check out the latest bank offers and you will see only a few banks still have yields above 5.0%). I wonder what the alternatives are in order to get good returns with flexible withdraw policies.
This article was originally written or modified on . If you enjoyed reading this post, please consider subscribing to my full RSS feed. Or you can also choose to have free daily updates delivered right to your inbox.
Author Info
I would LOVE to be earning 5% on T-bills now. Here is the list of losers that stole the taxpayers money and are responsible for the abysmal rates now. They should be in prison for committing extortion against our economy.
The TARP has so far committed the following funding:
AIG $40 billion
JPMorgan $25 billion
Citigroup $25 billion
Wells Fargo $25 billion
Bank of America $15 billion
Merrill Lynch $10 billion
Goldman Sachs $10 billion
Morgan Stanley $10 billion
PNC Financial Services $7.7 billion
Bank of New York Mellon $3 billion
State Street Corp $2 billion
Capital One Financial $3.55 billion
Fifth Third Bancorp $3.45 billion
Regions Financial $3.5 billion
SunTrust Banks $3.5 billion
BB&T Corp $3.1 billion
KeyCorp $2.5 billion
Comerica $2.25 billion
Marshall & Ilsley Corp $1.7 billion
Northern Trust Corp $1.5 billion
Huntington Bancshares $1.4 billion
Zions Bancorp $1.4 billion
First Horizon National $866 million
City National Corp $395 million
Valley National Bancorp $330 million
UCBH Holdings Inc $298 million
Umpqua Holdings Corp $214 million
Washington Federal $200 million
First Niagara Financial $186 million
HF Financial Corp $25 million
Bank of Commerce $17 million
TOTAL: $203.08 billion