@davidmoran
Reeeee someone got triggered by actual FACTS!!! Or maybe someone missed his senility meds...grow a brain u fn retard and stop letting libtard media brainwash ur dumb a$s.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/immigration/1658479/illegal-immigration-tab-182-billion-total-1156-per-taxpayer/

10 yr Agency with 1 yr CP are now available at 5.7%. I bought the same Agency a month ago at the same rate but only 6 mo CP. With 10 yr Treasuries moving up 30+ bps, Agency did not have to increase their rates because they are able to play with CP durations.
I see a lot of strategists falling over each other in issuing 2025 YE target but I have not come across anyone issuing their 10 Yr Treasury interest rate target. Please share if you see any 10 yr Treasury rate targets from professionals. Recent Treasury auction demand appeared solid - cure for high yields is high yields!?

Our CD/Treasury ladder is only out to three years, but I'm 85 and don't want to go too far out. Our Schwab SUTXX MMKT is currently at 4.35% and falling, the CD/Treasury ladder is at 4.81%. I'm replacing CDs and Treasurys as they mature, which will gradually move out the ladder.
At the moment the allocation is CD/Treasury ladder 43% and MMKT 57%. The main difference that I consider between CD/Treasury ladder and MMKT allocations is the possible need for "instant cash" due to future major medical issues. If it weren't for that I'd put almost everything into the CD/Treasury ladder. When we were younger we never kept this kind of money in either CDs or MMKTs.

Old_Joe, I have a very similar position on my Fixed Income positions. I have kept my CD Ladder at no more than 2 years, as I want my CD ladder to have ongoing CDs maturing pretty frequently, and have some liquidity issues better addressed with frequently maturing, short term CDs. I also have a wife who has very strong wish to have shorter term CDs in case she needs it "for a facelift"! Her way of saying that she may want a new car, a facelift, or surgery/treatment for one of the many "health related" issues we are monitoring closely! We also are dealing with a couple of Adult children and their families, who are continually needing financial support for health issues, losing jobs, needing money for an array of creative and surprising needs that crop up. In short, the shorter term CD ladder works fine for my situation, but may not be what others need, with their personal and financial situation.

Our CD/Treasury ladder is only out to three years, but I'm 85 and don't want to go too far out. Our Schwab SUTXX MMKT is currently at 4.35% and falling, the CD/Treasury ladder is at 4.81%. I'm replacing CDs and Treasurys as they mature, which will gradually move out the ladder.
At the moment the allocation is CD/Treasury ladder 43% and MMKT 57%. The main difference that I consider between CD/Treasury ladder and MMKT allocations is the possible need for "instant cash" due to future major medical issues. If it weren't for that I'd put almost everything into the CD/Treasury ladder. When we were younger we never kept this kind of money in either CDs or MMKTs.

AI Overview:
Kelly Community Federal Credit Union (KCFCU) in Tyler, Texas has been described as one of the most financially sound credit unions in the United States. KCFCU offers monthly and annual financial reports that include financial performance summaries, goals, commitments, and questions from members.
Credit unions are insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which is similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that insures banks. Most credit unions and banks are insured for up to $250,000 per customer.
KCFCU was founded in 1963 by employees from the Kelly-Springfield Tire Plant to provide a safe place for workers to save and borrow money. The credit union's mission is to treat members like family and prioritize relationships over transactions.
=====================================
dt, KCFCU appears to be a worthy place to invest your money.
That isn't the issue I have been beating to death on these threads which is duration.
Let me try a different angle:
What position do you think you are going to be in with interest bearing investment options in the 6-12 months after the investment you buy now matures?
Given the current rates and current trend, do you think you are going to be able to find an interest bearing investment of any duration paying 4+% in 6-12 months?
=======================================
Aside FWIW: You don't seem to care too much for my input, but buddy, I've been playing the CD ladder game for 12-13 years and I've not lost yet. I'm sitting a 5-yr, CP CD ladder paying a wee bit over 5% that was there for taking a year or so ago. Today, a 5-yr, 4+% CP CD ladder is there for the taking, for anyone who can step away from the tree and see the forest.

Abandoned the sell limit-order on BHB in favor of a Market order this morning. The SOB just has kept falling lately with no let-up. Still managed almost 15% to the upside with it. Proceeds into BLX and with just a smidge into WCPNX. (No partial buy-shares.) Holding off on SCYB for the time being.

It's not an issue like the mini-budget deal that had to be rushed to avoid the government shutdown. That may have drained some oxygen in the DC.
As for the WEP & GPO repeal, here is the timeline:
Saturday, 12/21/24 - Senate passed it
Tuesday, 12/24/24 - Read in the House and House Speaker signed it
Now the Senate President has to sign it.
Biden may receive it by 12/30/24 or 12/31/24.
Then the 10-day clock for pocket veto starts - either Biden signs it, or if he doesn't sign in in the 10-day window, it's pocket-vetoed. Remember that Biden said he supported this bill.
It should be retroactive to 1/1/24, so people may expect a big check from SSA. I read that SSA may split these back payments in 2025 and 2026.
IMO, people affected by the WEP & GPO should file online with SSA - new filing or adjustments to payments.
This MA site has been providing good info all along,
https://massretirees.com/2024/12/latest-on-wep-gpo-repeal/
Edit/Add. It's with Biden as of 12/28/24. So, the 10-day clock started yesterday.
https://trta.org/hr-82-wep-gpo-repeal-bill-reported-to-president-biden-for-his-signature/

Most of us know how FDIC insurance works and troubled banks are resolved but most of us have no understanding of how deposit insurance works at credit union level. Please educate us with examples of how depositors of CUs were protected (or not protected) when CUs got into trouble.

See excerpt below from a Google Search on Credit Union "Share Certificates";
A credit union share certificate is a type of savings account that offers a fixed interest rate for a set period of time:
How it works
You deposit money into a share certificate for a set term, usually between 3 months and 5 years. In exchange, you earn a higher interest rate, called a dividend, than a regular savings account. The longer the term, the higher the dividend.
Benefits
Share certificates are a good option if you want to earn interest on money you plan to use in the future. They can be a safer investment than stocks or mutual funds.
Risks
You'll incur penalties if you withdraw money before the term ends.
Insurance
Share certificates are federally insured by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for up to $250,000 per depositor, per ownership category, per institution. This is similar to the coverage offered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for banks.
Comparison to certificates of deposit (CDs)
Share certificates are similar to CDs, but are offered by credit unions instead of banks. The main difference is the name.

IBIT is at 0.25%.
https://www.blackrock.com/ae/intermediaries/products/333011/ishares-bitcoin-trust

Thanks msf! I have a CD in my IRA account maturing in a few days. I am tempted to reinvest it in 2 year callable CD, treating it like a 6 month noncallable CD. If it is called, I think I will still be able to get a 4% replacement callable CD, and if it is not called then I am fine with that callable rate for the length of the CD.
Regarding MMs, I am expecting all categories of MMs to fall below 4% in 2025--I will continue holding MMs but may reduce the amount I will keep in them.

@dtconroe. a very prudent decision for someone not into risk/drawdown and who is not a trader. Regarding CLOs, what is conveniently not mentioned is like most everything else in Bondland they melted down too during the Covid meltdown. Investment grade CLOs from AAA to BBB had drawdowns from 10% to 30% while below investment grade drawdowns were 40% to 45%. As recently as 2022, while investment grade CLOs eked out a small gain (JAAA) of under 1% below investment grade lost money. The longest tenured bond fund primarily into CLOs ( an interval fund) lost money 4 years since its 2014 inception. In 2020 had a multi week drawdown of 30%. 2023 and 2024 just happened to be “the right place right time” for CLOs. I hold slightly under 50% in CLOs but I am more than cognizant of the risks. A substitute for cash they certainly aren’t.

Thanks for your comment Junkster. These threads invite a wide array of responses, from posters with a wide array of investing preferences, and a wide array of personal financial circumstances that are the background to their financial decision making. I try to sort through the posted information, to see how much applicability it has to my personal investing criteria. This thread has led to a large variety of posters and posted information. I don't have any interest in CLOs, and I "currently" don't have any interest returning to the bond oef world of trading and momentum based decision making. I don't care for annuities and unique risks/rewards. CDs have been paying a very nice 5+% return for the last year, but that seems to be on the decline. I have never used callable CDs, but they do offer a better interest rate than noncallable CDs, for about 6 months and possibly longer. I am inclined to invest some maturing CD cash into a local Credit Union Share Certificate that pays about a half percent more than I can get at Schwab or my local bank. Different strokes for different folks, and their varied financial strategies and circumstances.

Thanks msf! I have a CD in my IRA account maturing in a few days. I am tempted to reinvest it in 2 year callable CD, treating it like a 6 month noncallable CD. If it is called, I think I will still be able to get a 4% replacement callable CD, and if it is not called then I am fine with that callable rate for the length of the CD.
Regarding MMs, I am expecting all categories of MMs to fall below 4% in 2025--I will continue holding MMs but may reduce the amount I will keep in them.

@dtconroe. a very prudent decision for someone not into risk/drawdown and who is not a trader. Regarding CLOs, what is conveniently not mentioned is like most everything else in Bondland they melted down too during the Covid meltdown. Investment grade CLOs from AAA to BBB had drawdowns from 10% to 30% while below investment grade drawdowns were 40% to 45%. As recently as 2022, while investment grade CLOs eked out a small gain (JAAA) of under 1% below investment grade lost money. The longest tenured bond fund primarily into CLOs ( an interval fund) lost money 4 years since its 2014 inception. In 2020 it had a multi week drawdown of 30%. As recently as 2022 this CLO fund lost 4.48%. 2023 and 2024 just happened to be “the right place right time” for CLOs. I hold slightly under 50% in CLOs but I am more than cognizant of the risks. A substitute for cash they certainly aren’t.

All true, which is why one is usually better off sticking with vanilla annuities. However, page count is a somewhat misleading metric.
Fixed annuity contracts are self-contained. Unlike mutual fund documentation, they are not broken into multiple parts: summary prospectus (outline), statutory prospectus (broad description of operation), and statement of additional information (legalize and structural info).
Add all those mutual fund pages together, and you might be at "just" 35 pages (Bruce fund BRUFX statutory prospectus + SAI), at 135 pages (VFIAX - 10 p. summary, 57 p. statutory, 78 p. SAI), or even find a humongous 575 pages (PIMIX - 5 p. summary, 142 p. statutory, 428 p. SAI).
Read a good bitcoin ETF prospectus lately? Those seem to run around 150 pages, with risk factors alone taking up scores of pages.
I pulled out an old SPDA contract I had years ago. Plain vanilla. Six pages on how the annuity could be annuitized plus a two page summary up front covering how the amount invested would grow (fixed rate) year by year and how much it would be worth annually including penalty if I closed it early. That's all.
Many if not most annuity contracts are complicated. But they don't have to be if all you're looking for is a fixed rate investment comparable to a CD. Things get at least a little more complicated if you're looking for an income stream (see, e.g. Social Security). And variable annuities? Now you're going up to potentially scores of pages for each fund offered inside the VA.

I failed to mention the option of using Credit Union Share Certificates for you CD money/investments that are maturing. They are "almost" identical to CDs regarding deposit protection coverage, varying terms, and interest rate offers. I have a local Credit Union, that is highly rated, and pays 4.5% for a one year Share Certificate (compared to 4% from my local bank), but its early withdrawal fee is 6 months of interest (compared to 3 months interest from my local bank). I currently have some CDs maturing from both my Schwab Brokerage accounts (some taxable some IRA), and my local Bank. I am considering moving some of my maturing CDs from Schwab to a local Credit Union. I am not a big fan of Brokerage CDs compared to local banks and credit unions, because of differences in early withdrawal penalties/fees.

@stillers, thanks.
That is from an article on "Portfolio Income & Withdrawals" that I published in a local e-paper this week (the full weekly issue isn't out yet, may be later today). It may also be of interest to others here.
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1795/thread

Mini-Grayscale BTC (ER 15 bps) now has $3.7 billion AUM and trades an average of 2 million shares/day. That is good enough for retail investors.
BTC vs the elder GBTC (150 bps) is a liquidity game for Grayscale. So, GBTC has very high ER, but also higher liquidity (but some Bitcoin ETFs have even higher trading volumes - IBIT, FBTC). Surprisingly, BTC trading volume is catching up fast with that of GBTC. But that issue is for institutions that may move $millions.
Several etf sponsors are playing this liquidity angle by continuing to offer older high ER ETFs and also newer low ER ETFs. In some cases, these "newer" offerings have surpassed the older offerings as is logical.
IBIT is the new champion - by the AUM, average volume and ER. M*, Yahoo Finance and ETFdb are all showing 12 bps ER - I suppose taking into account waivers and graduated fee schedule - I haven't checked the details recently. So, FBTC to IBIT may be a better switch than to BTC. There may be some TLH involved too.

Of the 12 Bitcoin ETFs, both the cheapest ER (BTC - 0.15%) and the most expensive ER (GBTC -1.5%) are from Grayscale (0.25%).
When IBIT was introduced its ER was 0.12% until Jan 11, 2015 or until $5B in AUM, whichever comes first. Currently $50+B in AUM.
VanEck's HODL waived fees until Mar. 31, 2025 or first $1.5 billion in fund assets, whichever comes first. Even with the massive run up in Bitcoin price, HODL only has $1.3B in AUM.
Any reason I should not swap my FBTC (0.25% ER, same as IBIT ER) for BTC? Paying any fees on this asset is a bummer - it is like a negative interest rate, monthly administrative fees on bank accounts, or safe deposit box fees, depending on your disposition.

re: SALT
- again, some broad changes could make munis look relatively worse, but i was looking for speculation on trump+GOP specifically acting to damage the tax-free bond mkt.
re: immigration taxes
- well, trump wants to spend +10x of taxpayer money to deport, relative to incoming tax revenue.
so the obvious grift here is a bunch of unqualified private MAGA corporations getting in the deportation biz. along the lines of his talentless border wall builders, expect criminal actions and minimal throughput.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-mass-deportation-program-cost/story?id=115318034

For more than a year now, I took the other side, which has been one of the best risk/reward performance in bond land. Investing in lower-rated CLOs.
CLOZ made over 20% in 1.5 years, while TLT lost over 9%.
https://schrts.co/PcchSZaD
Currently, CLOZ pays about 8% per year based on its last distribution * 12 months + duration is short (I can't find it).
TLT pays about 4.8% with duration = 16.5
Why would I take a high risk/volatility trade based on unknown rates?
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4627176-cloz-bbb-bb-clo-etf-strong-10-7-percent-sec-yield-low-interest-rate-risk
The above isn't a recommendation, just an observation. Never in life have I bought directly a Treasury or a very high-rated bond fund. Too much risk/volatility per unknown rates/duration/correlation.

”A 10 year bond with 5% coupon has a duration under seven years.” - Wow. You learn something every day here.
BTW - I inputted “intermediate” at M* and pulled up the first fund it found. So, SNIDX wasn’t meant to be a recommendation and it may not be representative of other intermediate term bond funds.

Even intermediate duration bond funds (like SNIDX) normally keep average portfolio duration at 10 years or less.
It's easy to mix up duration and maturity. A 10 year bond with 5% coupon has a duration under seven years.
SNIDX "seeks to maintain an effective duration of three to seven years under normal market conditions." Summary Prospectus
The difference in yields between 10 year and 30 year bonds is usually not that large. So buying 30 year bonds is tantamount to placing a bet on interest rate movements. As Yogi noted, the impact of any rate change is magnified with the 30 year bond.
Currently (12/24/2024) the 30 year is yielding just 17 basis points more than the 10 year. Further, a bond maturing in 20 years is paying even more than the 30 year bond. So buying the lower yielding 30 year is not to get a higher yield but solely to get more exposure to interest rate changes.
Daily Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates - December 2024