Friday, November 15, 2019

Money Market Rates Are Still Falling

Here are the latest money market interest rates of the banks that I've been tracking on my blog. Note that these rates are sorted by APY, and represent institutions that I have accounts at, or have otherwise mentioned in my blog:

1.90% FNBO Direct Online Savings
1.90% Marcus by Goldman Sachs (GS Bank) Online Savings
1.90% Capital One 360 Money Market
1.80% Discover Bank Online Savings
1.75% American Express High Yield Savings
1.70% Ally Bank Online Savings
0.50% Unify FCU Money Market
0.06% Citibank Savings Account
0.04% Chase Plus Savings

In some cases, MMA interest rates are tiered. If this is the case, I usually report the interest rate at the $10,000 tier in these updates. Rates are believed to be accurate as of 11/14/19. I did not include banks that had special, or introductory rates in the list because they are not ongoing interest rates. I am also not including non-liquid accounts such as CD's in the list. I have included one credit union in the list so that readers have a comparison point with banks.

In fairness to the bottom three institutions on my list (Unify FCU, Citibank, and Chase), money market accounts are not their strong suit. Each of these offers short-term CDs that pay significantly more than their money market offerings. If your financial institution doesn't have a decent money market, you may investigate if they have any competitive CD rates.

Overall, MM account interest rates are continuing to fall. Notably, the Ally Bank Online Savings account was paying 2.20% as recently as June 2019, and has now dropped to 1.70%. It will be interesting to see if the rates will continue to go down, or stabilize from here.

Frequent changes show how variable the money market is. Because this is a constantly moving target, it has been very hard to keep track of the rates that I've been getting in my various money market accounts, and this is the main reason I've decided to compile a list of these annual percentage yields.

So, that is the latest list of money market rates. Please let me know if you know of any higher interest rates.

PFS

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Another Broker Price War

It all started with Charles Schwab announcing that they will eliminate commissions on U.S. stock, ETF, and option trades (they will still charge $0.65 per contract) as of Monday, October 7, 2019. I was then informed that TD Ameritrade has followed suit and will charge $0 commissions as of October 3, 2019.

In the middle of writing this post, I then heard from E*TRADE that they would also reduce their commissions to $0 on Monday. I have an old OptionsHouse account that is now administered by E*TRADE, and was already getting $3.95 trade commission.

So far, there is no news from Fidelity; I assume that they will continue to charge $4.95 per trade. This is another series of moves in the continuing price war among online brokers.

I stopped paying much attention to commissions when they dropped below $20 per trade, saying that "The difference of few dollars is not a big deal." But, it is interesting to note that stock commissions are still going down -- a true race to the bottom. I still remember the days when paying $45-50 per trade was considered very reasonable. We were comparing discount brokerages versus the full service guys at the time.

PFS

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Money Market Rates August 2019

Here are the latest money market interest rates of the banks that I've been tracking on my blog. Note that these rates are sorted by APY, and represent institutions that I have accounts at, or have otherwise mentioned in my blog:

2.15% Marcus by Goldman Sachs (GS Bank) Online Savings
2.10% FNBO Direct Online Savings
2.10% American Express High Yield Savings
2.00% Discover Bank Online Savings
2.00% Capital One 360 Money Market
1.90% Ally Bank Online Savings
0.50% Unify FCU Money Market
0.06% Citibank Savings Account
0.04% Chase Plus Savings

In some cases, MMA interest rates are tiered. If this is the case, I usually report the interest rate at the $10,000 tier in these updates. Rates are believed to be accurate as of 8/6/19. I did not include banks that had special, or introductory rates in the list because they are not ongoing interest rates. I am also not including non-liquid accounts such as CD's in the list. I have included one credit union in the list so that readers have a comparison point with banks.

Although, most of the better MM accounts offer a rate of 2.00% or higher, these interest rates are beginning to drop again. For a long while, there was a significant uptrend in these money market rates. It will be interesting to see what happens in the longer term.

Frequent changes show how variable the money market is. Because this is a constantly moving target, it has been very hard to keep track of the rates that I've been getting in my various money market accounts, and this is the main reason I've decided to compile a list of these annual percentage yields.

So, that is the latest list of money market rates. Please let me know if you know of any higher interest rates.

PFS

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Money Market Rates June 2019

Here are the latest money market interest rates of the banks that I've been tracking on my blog. Note that these rates are sorted by APY, and represent institutions that I have accounts at, or have otherwise mentioned in my blog:

2.25% Marcus by Goldman Sachs (GS Bank) Online Savings
2.20% FNBO Direct Online Savings
2.20% Ally Bank Online Savings
2.10% American Express High Yield Savings
2.10% Discover Bank Online Savings
2.00% Capital One 360 Money Market
0.50% Unify FCU Money Market
0.06% Citibank Savings Account
0.04% Chase Plus Savings

In some cases, MMA interest rates are tiered. If this is the case, I usually report the interest rate at the $10,000 tier in these updates. Rates are believed to be accurate as of 6/24/19. I did not include banks that had special, or introductory rates in the list because they are not ongoing interest rates. I am also not including non-liquid accounts such as CD's in the list. I have included one credit union in the list so that readers have a comparison point with banks.

Most of the better MM accounts are now offering a rate of 2.00% or higher. These interest rates are now competitive. For a while, there was a significant uptrend in these money market rates. However, they now seem to have stabilized, and there has been little change from month to month.

Frequent changes show how variable the money market is. Because this is a constantly moving target, it has been very hard to keep track of the rates that I've been getting in my various money market accounts, and this is the main reason I've decided to compile a list of these annual percentage yields.

So, that is the latest list of money market rates. Please let me know if you know of any higher interest rates.

PFS

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Money Market Rates March 2019

Here are the latest money market interest rates of the banks that I've been tracking on my blog. Note that these rates are sorted by APY, and represent institutions that I have accounts at, or have otherwise mentioned in my blog:

2.25% Marcus by Goldman Sachs (GS Bank) Online Savings
2.25% FNBO Direct Online Savings
2.20% Ally Bank Online Savings
2.10% American Express High Yield Savings
2.10% Discover Bank Online Savings
2.00% Capital One 360 Money Market
0.50% Unify FCU Money Market
0.06% Citibank Savings Account
0.04% Chase Plus Savings

In some cases, MMA interest rates are tiered. If this is the case, I usually report the interest rate at the $10,000 tier in these updates. Rates are believed to be accurate as of 4/22/19. I did not include banks that had special, or introductory rates in the list because they are not ongoing interest rates. I am also not including non-liquid accounts such as CD's in the list. I have included one credit union in the list so that readers have a comparison point with banks.

Most of the better MM accounts are now offer a rate of 2.00% or higher. The interest rates are now very competitive, and I expect that will be a trend for a while.

The frequent changes show how variable the money market is. Because this is a constantly moving target, it has been very hard to keep track of the rates that I've been getting in my various money market accounts, and this is the main reason I've decided to compile a list of these annual percentage yields.

So, that is the latest list of money market rates. Please let me know if you know of any higher interest rates.

PFS

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Money Market Rates February 2019

Here are the latest money market interest rates of the banks that I've been tracking on my blog. Note that these rates are sorted by APY, and represent institutions that I have accounts at, or have otherwise mentioned in my blog:

2.25% Marcus by Goldman Sachs (GS Bank) Online Savings
2.20% Ally Bank Online Savings
2.15% FNBO Direct Online Savings
2.10% American Express High Yield Savings
2.10% Discover Bank Online Savings
2.00% Capital One 360 Money Market
0.50% Unify FCU Money Market
0.06% Citibank Savings Account
0.04% Chase Plus Savings

In some cases, MMA interest rates are tiered. If this is the case, I usually report the interest rate at the $10,000 tier in these updates. Rates are believed to be accurate as of 2/13/19. I did not include banks that had special, or introductory rates in the list because they are not ongoing interest rates. (For example, Citibank currently offers a competitive (2.15%) promotional savings rate. However, it requires a $25,000 deposit of "new money" and drops back to their standard rate after 90 days.) I am also not including non-liquid accounts such as CD's in the list. I have included one credit union in the list so that readers have a comparison point with banks.

Most of the better MM accounts are now offer a rate of 2.00% or higher. The interest rates are now very competitive, and I expect that will be a trend for a while.

The frequent changes show how variable the money market is. Because this is a constantly moving target, it has been very hard to keep track of the rates that I've been getting in my various money market accounts, and this is the main reason I've decided to compile a list of these annual percentage yields.

So, that is the latest list of money market rates. Please let me know if you know of any higher interest rates.

PFS