Wendy had giving a link to a decent CD comparison tool. I cannot find it now. Can I get a link to the tool or the pist?
Qazulight
www.bankrate.com shows bank CDs.
Fidelity’s Fixed Income section has both secondary market and new CDs.
Wendy
6 Likes
I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately and looking for some LPs and CDs. I was disappointed when I realized this was about certificates of deposit. Oh well.
4 Likes
I think most brokerage firms have a function within their online trading portal related to Fixed Income that will allow you to search a wide range of banks across the country and filter by term, rate, callable, etc. then purchase anything you find out of your cash account. I have accounts at Fidelity, Merrill / BOA and Schwab and all three provide these functions. They even summarize your accrued interest income to assist with calculating your quarterly estimated tax payments.
Of course, when you have multiple brokerage accounts, you have to log into each one, get the numbers and add them up youself. I wroe a simple Android app to track all of my CDs in one place, summarize income and remind me of maturities to ensure money doesn’t go idle without becoming dependent on auto rollovers.
WTH
2 Likes
After noticing that the rates were so close across brokerage accounts, and really identical most of the time, I stopped bothering to do this. I go to one brokerage account, click on “fixed income”, select “CDs”, and then click on “Yield” to sort from highest to lowest. I then buy the highest yielding non-callable CD. That’s it. Takes seconds. The reason I do this is because as far as I am concerned all CDs are created equal (obviously if FDIC insured) so I don’t care which bank issues the CD, I only care about the highest rate available.
Now, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t do this because it is simplest and quickest. However, I am quite sure that many do it because sometimes by the time I click on “Buy” and fill out the order form, and click “Place order”, they’ve run out of that CD and the order doesn’t go through. Then I have to go back to the search tab and buy the second or third CD on the list, usually same rate, sometimes 0.05% less. Last week, there was an Ally bank CD that had the highest rate (higher than all the others) and I managed to snag it in one account, but by the time I tried buying the same one in a different account, they were all gone.
2 Likes
After noticing that the rates were so close across brokerage accounts, and really identical most of the time, I stopped bothering to do this.
Agreed. I’m doing this not because I’m “shopping” available CDs at one broker against another. I’m just doing it cuz my money was already split across the different brokerages for historical reasons (it used to be four brokers before Schwab bought out Ameritrade…) and I decided to not consolidate the accounts in case one has a back office problem during some market calamity and I still want to have a chance at accessing some of my funds. The choices are so wide and spread geographically across the country that there is not likely any advantage one broker has over the other.
And the process is truly painless. You can buy or renew a CD in SECONDS. Versus a half an hour doing it in person at a local bank with a fraction of the choices and better rates available nationally. Please, do NOT limit your CD choices to only those at your local bank.
WTH
2 Likes