WSJ's Zweig on Cash, GS Bank
The Wall Street Journal's "Intelligent Investor column by Jason Zweig featured a piece entitled, "Take a Hint from Goldman: Squeeze More Out of Your Cash" this weekend. He writes, "Low interest rates have made many investors too complacent with their cash. Squeezing more income out of your cash hardly seems worth the bother in today's yield-parched world. The average bank money-market account yields 0.11%, according to Bankrate.com. At those rates, $10,000 will earn $11 in a year — enough to buy a few bags of potato chips at Wal-Mart. The Crane 100 Money Fund Index, a measure of returns on money-market mutual funds, yields a still-woeful 0.22%. With yields so low, even the personal-finance columnist of The Wall Street Journal has thousands of dollars languishing in a bank savings account earning 0.04% a year. Yes, I know that at that rate, my money won't double for another 1,733 years. But, along with many other investors, I have what economists call a delay-discounting problem. The work of having to move my money is immediate, while the rewards that come from moving it are delayed.... I've been procrastinating on this for years. Until now, that is. Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs -- the Wall Street giant that has long personified wealth and power -- began offering savings accounts and certificates of deposit through its online GS Bank. Goldman's initiative has prodded me to wring more return out of my cash. Over the next few weeks I'll finally move out of bank accounts with miniaturized returns into higher-yielding choices.... Getting extra yield without extra risk takes a bit of work. But cash accounts are perhaps the only area of investing where you can increase your returns 25-fold -- or more -- without incurring greater risk. For larger investors, wringing out more yield this way can add up to hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in extra income annually. How attractive are Goldman's rates? At 1.05% for a savings account and 2% for a five-year CD, they are quite competitive. Goldman's GS Bank is one good choice. This week, seven other online banks offered savings-account rates of 1.15% or greater, including the Bank of Princeton and UFB Direct." In other news, the New York Fed updated its "Reverse Repo Counterparties List." The latest entry says, "Federated Institutional Money Market Management has been added to the list of reverse repo counterparties, effective May 4, 2016." A prior update says, "Deutsche Cash Management Master Portfolio changed its name to Government Cash Management Portfolio, and Master Government Institutional Portfolio managed by Blackrock Advisors, LLC, changed its name to Master Treasury Strategies Institutional Portfolio, effective May 2."
