NY Times on Short-Term Investing
The New York Times writes on "Investing When Your Time Horizon Is Short. Subtitled, "Cut back on stock and bond holdings, and focus on money market funds, C.D.s, Treasury bills and other options that are now offering high yields, our columnist says," the piece tells us, "Money market fund yields now average more than 4 percent, for large funds sampled by Peter G. Crane, the president of Crane Data in Westborough, Mass. Major companies like Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab and T. Rowe Price offer such funds. Their yields have rapidly soared from near zero over the last year, following the lead of the Federal Reserve, and they are highly likely to rise closer to 5 percent if the Fed continues to raise interest rates, as it has indicated it intends to do." The piece continues, "Some high-yield savings accounts -- which carry government guarantees, unlike the higher-yielding money market funds-- are now offering interest rates above 3 percent, according to Bankrate.com. Bank C.D.s of a duration of one year or more are beginning to provide yields above 4 percent. Treasury notes with a maturity of two years are offering yields over 4 percent, and Treasury inflation, or I bonds, are paying 6.89 percent. In short, at the beginning of 2022, short-term holdings offered almost nothing appealing. Now, there is a broad range of options with relatively handsome yields, though none look particularly good when inflation is still running at a 6.5 percent annual rate, as the latest numbers show. For the year as a whole, after including dividends, the S&P 500 lost 18 percent, the worst return since 2008. The average stock mutual fund fell 18 percent as well." It adds, "For bonds, it was the worst year in all of modern history, said Edward McQuarrie, an emeritus professor at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. The 12-month stretch through October was the worst for any 12 months since 1794. The calendar 2022 year returns were terrible, too. The average taxable bond mutual fund lost 9.9 percent for the year. And long-term Treasury bonds, as measured by two leading exchanged-traded funds, the Vanguard Long-Term Treasury E.T.F. and the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond E.T.F., lost nearly 30 percent of their value."
