CD rates Blog

CDs have been yielding next to nothing for years now and savers have left no stone unturned in the hunt for alternatives. One alternative, the paper savings bond, will be going away in January 2012. Thereafter, consumers will only be able to buy savings bonds online — for the most part. While the yields on

The amount of money held in CDs continued to dwindle this month to the lowest point since 1994, likely because of savers’ reluctance to lock their money in at today’s rock-bottom CD rates. Overall, according to the Federal Reserve, CD accounts held $770 billion as of Nov. 14. Compare that to the $1.2 trillion in

Though the number of annual bank failures has fallen since the height of the financial crisis, it’s still all-too common to see banks going belly up. With the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on the case banks don’t generally just collapse but instead the FDIC arranges to have another bank take over the failed bank’s deposits.

A recent study by Wells Fargo peered into Americans’ feelings about retirement and found that 68 percent of respondents are not confident that the stock market is the best place to invest their retirement savings. Nearly half say that they would prefer to invest in CDs instead of stocks and mutual funds for retirement. From

Most consumers probably think of the death of debit card fees as an unadulterated good, but it may have some negative consequences for CD investors hoping to find decent CD rates at large national banks. Dan Geller of Market Rates Insight has a piece in BAI Banking Strategies this month arguing for reducing deposit rates

In the global economy, events on the other side of the world can have big impacts here at home. For instance, the European debt crisis has loomed over domestic money market funds since the beginning. Most people in the United States aren’t directly holding debt securities from the struggling European countries known as the PIIGS,

If you’re annoyed about rock-bottom CD rates, take some comfort in the fact that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke feels your pain. When asked about the issue by Bankrate contributor Katherine Lewis at a press conference last week, Bernanke acknowledged Federal Reserve policies, including Operation Twist, were pushing down yields on CDs: We are quite

You may have heard recently that banks were planning to boost income by instituting monthly fees for debit cards. In the face of public outrage banks backed off that proposal but they may have tipped their hand. One way or another, consumers will pay more for banking services in the future — and that could

Are banks so flush with cash they’re literally turning CD investors and other depositors away? It looks that way, at least with some financial institutions. I’ve been writing for a while now about how the combination of excess deposits and a lack of loan demand at U.S. banks have been depressing CD rates. Last week,

This blog has been around for a while now but it began well after the Fed drastically lowered the federal funds rate in December 2008. Here’s a quick recap of the entire history of the CD rates blog: CD rates are low, what can you do? A column in the Winston-Salem Journal, “With CD yields