Why is this is better than an ETF treasury fund, CDs, and high-interest savings accounts?
Answer: Treasury Bills "interest" is state & local tax-free on the money earned. So if you're in a high-income tax state and city they're worth it.ETF fund aren't always 100% in treasuries and charge fees.
Question (asked a dozen or more times in the thread) : How does bill interest work?
Answer: Treasury Bills "interest" is the difference between face value and purchase price. You buy a $10k bill at less than $10k, upon maturity, it is worth $10k. The difference between purchase price and maturity value is your "interest."
Tax Equivalent Yield Calculator For Savings Bonds, Treasury Bills, and Tax-Exempt Money Market Funds
https://www.mymoneyblog
How Buy and Sell Treasury Bills
https://thefinancebuff.com/treasury-bills-cd-money-market.html
When are the auctions? When can I place an order?
4, 8, 13, 17, and 26 week bills are auctioned every week.
52 week bills are auctioned every four weeks.
You can see recent results and the planned schedule at: https://www.treasurydir
4 and 8 week bills are usually announced on Tuesday, auctioned on Thursday, and settle on Tuesday.
17 and week bills are usually announced on Tuesday, auctioned on Wednesday, and settle on Tuesday.
13 and 26 week bills are usually announced on Thursday, auctioned on Monday, and settle on Thursday.
52 week bills are usually announced every 4th Thursday, auctioned on Tuesday, and settle on Thursday.
At a brokerage, you can usually can place an order between the announcement and auction.
At TreasuryDirect, you can place an order up to about 8 weeks in advance.
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Treasury BILLS are currently paying over 5% for various maturity lengths under 1 year. These can be bought through most brokerages even without a TreasuryDirect account.
Treasury BONDS are paying 4% or less and have 20 or 30 year terms.
The 4 week bill ordering opens tomorrow 8/8, the deadline to buy it is sometime Thursday 8/10 morning depending on where you are buying it and it settles on 8/15.
On TD Ameritrade, they take your money on the 10th (take it out of the money you can trade with when you hit purchase which can be as early as the 8th) and buy the bill on the 15th during time which you earn no interest. Thus the reason that I stopped buying 4 and 8 week bills at auction. Secondary markets settle the next day so often a better deal. Treasury direct does not take the money from your bank account till the day it settles and Vanguard keeps it in the settlement fund earning interest till the day it settles as well. Not sure about the other brokerage houses. Also, not sure if you rollover the t-bills how the time between redemption and the next auction works as far as any interest you are losing as that is often a week of interest as well.
FYI, if you do the math, 4 weeks for $10,000 usually gets you about $40 in interest for letting them hold your money for 5 weeks.
The Monday auctions for 3 months and six months settle on Thursday so much less time to hold your money for nothing and less redemption downtime.
The money market funds often have repurchase agreements that are taxed at the state and local level but obviously more liquid. Am looking into the ETFs now.
Good luck to everyone!
FYI, to the person who asked about the 100,000 for three months. If you did the 13 week auction today you would get $1338 in interest at the end of the three months. Prorated per annum as per the person who posted above stated
Technically, you would pay $98,662 for the bonds and get $100,000 on November 9th. The difference between what you pay now and what the bonds are redeemed for in November is considered the interest.
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More like about 1/4 of that (rates are annual, but you're only giving them $$ for 1/4 of a year).
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FYI, to the person who asked about the 100,000 for three months. If you did the 13 week auction today you would get $1338 in interest at the end of the three months. Prorated per annum as per the person who posted above stated
Technically, you would pay $98,662 for the bonds and get $100,000 on November 9th. The difference between what you pay now and what the bonds are redeemed for in November is considered the interest.
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The 4 week bill ordering opens tomorrow 8/8, the deadline to buy it is sometime Thursday 8/10 morning depending on where you are buying it and it settles on 8/15.
On TD Ameritrade, they take your money on the 10th (take it out of the money you can trade with when you hit purchase which can be as early as the 8th) and buy the bill on the 15th during time which you earn no interest. Thus the reason that I stopped buying 4 and 8 week bills at auction. Secondary markets settle the next day so often a better deal. Treasury direct does not take the money from your bank account till the day it settles and Vanguard keeps it in the settlement fund earning interest till the day it settles as well. Not sure about the other brokerage houses. Also, not sure if you rollover the t-bills how the time between redemption and the next auction works as far as any interest you are losing as that is often a week of interest as well.
FYI, if you do the math, 4 weeks for $10,000 usually gets you about $40 in interest for letting them hold your money for 5 weeks.
The Monday auctions for 3 months and six months settle on Thursday so much less time to hold your money for nothing and less redemption downtime.
The money market funds often have repurchase agreements that are taxed at the state and local level but obviously more liquid. Am looking into the ETFs now.
Good luck to everyone!
I'm new to this, what is it meam? So you can start topurchase the T-bill on the 8th until the 10th and interest start on the 15th, Is this correct in my understanding?
T-Bills are govt insured, not sure if Fidelity or other brokerages are. That is very important for me.
The other brokerages are not insured, either. They do, however, have SIPC coverage. And cash sweeps will also have FDIC protection.
https://www.treasurydir
https://home.treasury.g
https://www.treasurydir
While your brokerage likely offers them fee-free, there really is no reason to go through them if you plan on holding the T-Bills to maturity. Treasury Direct may not be the slickest site out there, but it works and it is fairly easy to use once you set up you bank account with them. Money is deposited the day it matures and you can setup up multiple re-investments of the same amount and maturity so they will basically repurchase a new T-bill of the same amount and maturity for you when it comes due and put the remaining interest earned into your bank account. The only thing you need to remember is that T-bills are sold at a discount reflecting the anticipated interest earned at the rate given over the period. When they mature, you get the full value of the T-Bill.
There really is no reason to be messing around with CDs offering less and state and local taxable or with ETFs using 1-3 month bonds with less of a return and some risk imo....none imo.
At some point when interest rates may start to come down a long term CD might make sense, but all signs point to the Fed to continue to raise rates for awhile.
It is extremely easy to buy T-Bills once your TD account is set up and you have a bank account for the source of the funding linked.
T-Bills are govt insured, not sure if Fidelity or other brokerages are. That is very important for me.
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