Best Online Savings, CDs, and Money Market Rates

4 Year CD Offering 2.55% APY

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While most CDs have terms of 1, 2, 3, and 5 years; iGObanking offers a more unusual 4 year CD. Keep a close eye on iGObanking’s CD promotions as they offer very competitive rates but move quickly because the time frame to lock the rate is often short-lived. Their latest promotion is a 48 month CD that pays 2.55% APY. According to RateCatcher's CD rates chart, this is a better rate than other banks like Stonebridge Bank are paying on a 5 year CD. You can view more details at … [Read more...]

Top CD Rates Compared by Yield/Term Ratio

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It is typical for CDs to offer a higher yield for a longer term. The farther out the term goes, the less the bank is willing to boost the yield. Using RateCatcher’s CD rate comparison tool, I calculated the ratio of yield to term for the most common CD terms. The longest term CDs provided the worst ratios with the best 7 year CD coming in at 0.49. The sweet spot is at the 1 year and 2 year CDs with ratios of 1.48 and 1.13 respectively. The 6 month CD is somewhat irrelevant because the … [Read more...]

Why Are Money Market Accounts Becoming More Popular than CDs?

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A recent study by Market Rates Insight (San Anselmo, California) showed an increase in bank customers choosing money market accounts over CDs. Here is a quick summary of the study for the second half of 2010: Deposits in money market accounts rose by 2.6% or $138 billion Time Deposits (CDs) dropped by a whopping 8.5% or $200 billion Savings Accounts increased by $76 billion Checking account deposits moved up by $43 billion So why are people moving their savings from CDs to money … [Read more...]

Stock Market Likely to Drop 7-10% This Month

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The longer the market trades in a range, the stronger the breakout is when it occurs. The S&P 500 has setup a very similar topping pattern this month as it did in August before a rapid and steep sell off. John Nyaradi of www.wall-street-sector-selector.com, created a nice chart showing this in an article he wrote on SeekingAlpha.com: As you can see the topping patterns are very similar including the Full Stochastics being overbought. However, this time, the RSI has been even more … [Read more...]

Are Dividend Stocks a Good Idea?

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In our previous post on high-yield dividend stocks, we highlighted Ares Capital (ticker: ARCC) and BlackRock Kelso Capital Corporation (BKCC). ARCC currently yields 9.30% and BKCC yields 11.30% in annual dividends. As amazing as these yields seem to be, there are even more aggressive yields being paid by companies in more diverse sectors. Be careful to diversify your exposure to high yield dividend stocks to lower risk. Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA (ticker: GOL) Current Dividend … [Read more...]