U.S. Treasury: Short Term Treasury Bills (4-Week-52-Week Maturity) Up to

To clarify...

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.

Have learned so much on this site so am trying to return the favor with what I've learned that I don't see anyone else talking about.

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!

If Fidelity goes bust you still own the T-Bills and the government will pay you or whatever brokerage house the T-Bills are transferred to in your name. There is also SIPC insurance which covers you for fraud in case Fidelity didn't actually buy it for you and ran away with the money. Technically the limit you are covered for is $500,000 but all the brokerages have excess insurance which is for a very large amount. Usually over $50 million per person. You can check with each of the brokerages to see what they cover though the people who answer the phone don't often know about this as they are just reading from a script.

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.