If you have a 4 year or less CD in the 2% range the pathway one would be worth breaking it for. However, do not tie up funds you may need as part of your “emergency fund” for that length of time. That offer is not showing anywhere on their website and if it was available I’d join and setup one now myself. I think it’s going to be a while before you see the banks returning to the “old days”. Even if the economy recovers the banks are going to be slow to return because they need to make up for the funds they “lost” paying out higher interest rates now on cd’s previously setup.
NFCU 37 month IRA CD is gone from their rate chart
I wonder if it was targeted or what but this was the email the advisor sent me:
Rates have significantly decreased over the last few months due to the actions of the Federal Reserve. As a result, fixed rate options such as savings accounts, money markets, and CD’s have been significantly affected across the country.
You can still earn attractive fixed rates during these uncertain economic times with Pathways Retirement and Investment Services Program.
You can earn rates as high as:
• 2.25% APY* (3 year term)
• 2.75% APY* (5 year term)
• 3.50% APY* (7 year term)
Request your complimentary appointment today to find out how Pathways Retirement and Investment Services Program can help you navigate these difficult times!
I have not contacted my financial advisor there so I don’t know what the exact terms are for those CDs but I could not find the same rates on their website. Not sure why.
Were it me I would do so in a heartbeat . . . . at least for a portion of your funds. That is an amazing deal!
But from the sound of your post the offer might be for IRA funds only. No?
Do not forget some financial institutions, because of the pandemic, are allowing early CD closures without payment of a penalty. If your existing CDs are sufficiently high yielding, this could be a win both for you and for your financial institution. The entire goal here being for you to extend your maturities without sacrificing yield.
Good point. I did not consider these could be IRA CDs but the program hints that they could be.
I guess I’ll get in contact with the specific senior advisor who sent me the email and find out what the terms are before I get too excited. May also be good rates but on either really low amounts or on jumbo amounts, neither of which would really work for me considering my currently available funds.
For others:
Shandril’s deal is, of course, absolutely amazing!! Sadly must post this information, copied and pasted from Ken’s website, for those insufficiently fortunate to be in Shandril’s situation:
Pathways Financial Credit Union membership is open to those who live, work, worship, or attend school in Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Pickaway, or Union Counties in Ohio.
The Columbus, Ohio region is a great place to live even without this deal, which might be a reason to consider moving there.
ETA
Appears as if Ken was in error. On the Pathways website is says:
You are eligible for membership if you live, work, worship or attend school in Ohio, as well as the city of Maysville, KY.
So anywhere in Ohio works. Also they have over 400 SEGs.
Hey Shandril, how’d you like to rent out a closet as a mailing address?
It can be House Number-C for Closet.
Shandrill, if you read this email very carefully, I don’t think they are offering you a NCUA insured CD. It sounds like this offer is coming from the credit union’s financial advisor. This could be some kind of annuity or insurance product.
I think you nailed it.
You can find 3.5% rates on 7 year annuity
Could be a good investment though if someone does want to lock up money for 7 years. Surrender fees can be punishing for an annuity though.
In normal times nobody cares much about financial institution soundness. This is because we have the NCUA and the FDIC, and because interest rates are respectable.
These are not normal times. Your insured funds in a covered, but failed, American financial institution might have to be returned to you. This leaves you holding the bag, needing to reinvest that money in our current very low interest rate environment. Bottom line, better today to put your dough into those financial institutions less likely to turn turtle. This goes double if you have available multiple add-on CD opportunities at various financial institutions, as I do.
Tracking
Problem is to know in advance which financial institutions are relatively weak, so you can avoid them. The pandemic, which hit quickly. is harming our entire economy. Performance numbers for the various financial institutions are released only quarterly. The December 31, 2019 numbers are worthless, except as a baseline, because they do not reflect the pandemic’s impact. The March 31, 2020 numbers are not much better. They reflect only several weeks worth of pandemic impact, at most. And we don’t have access yet to those most recent performance numbers and cannot see ratings based on them . . . yet.
The performance numbers which really matter will not be released until the end of June. That data will reflect three months of pandemic economic impact and be a real dose of reality!
What I have done, for the three financial institutions that matter most to me, is to take and save screenshots of the Weiss Research pages for each based on December thirty-first data. Did this because once Weiss publishes results based on March thirty-first data, that older data will disappear . . and you have to pay to have access to it.
I want to be able to compare the December and March Weiss data for each of the three institutions. Not all the changes will necessarily be related to the pandemic. There could be other underlying stuff in there about which I want to know sooner, rather than later, to help me make better CD investment/placement decisions going forward.
Do you have a paid subscription to Weiss?
No. As I wrote, with a paid subscription you can see history. I’m too cheap to pay.
I do have a free signup, though, which allows me to view (and to copy via screen grab and save) current financial institution ratings pages.
With the free signup your views/day are limited. This can be worked around with selective manipulation (i.e., elimination) of your Weiss Research cookies.
This is prompted by fresh posting over on Ken’s website:
Explanation and admission
My principal focus now is the health of financial institutions which house my add-on CDs. Those are the ones I have been following on Weiss Research, especially the C rating at GTE which I’m hoping does not descend into junk status.
But I’ve not been following, as I should have, ratings of other financial institutions where I have CDs. In particular, it has come to light that Weiss is giving Sharonview only a C+ rating. Sharonview, of course, is where we have some of our 4% APY money. We need Sharonview to remain solvent and paying us that high interest rate.
All these concerns about financial institution viability are prompted by the pandemic, and what it is doing to our American economy. If Sharonview were to fail, for example, I would not lose my principal. Sharonview is NCUA insured. But quite possibly a failure of Sharonview would cause loss of my 4% APY CD. Heck, the NCUA might even return my money to me, which would be a most unwelcome event in this horrid interest rate environment.
Hence additional focus on Weiss Ratings . . . . pretty much across the board.
Just so you know, you can get all the data and financial information for each credit union from the NCUA website. I doubt Weiss has any data that’s not available from NCUA. I would bet you their data base is taken directly from the NCUA, which is readily available to the public.
Thanks. That’s good information.
For me, I want the information formatted, organized, and presented as Weiss does. This will allow quick apples-apples comparisons when the new data sets become available. Thus, keeping a copy of the old Weiss data is my choice of the way to go.
But, obviously, suit yourself. Whatever works for you is fine.
Would you folks consider a 60-Mo Jumbo CD 2.61%, $50k minimum, worth while?
Over at Ken’s place TFCU is offering this.
It’s a pretty long time, but I have several CD’s maturing this year & need someplace to go with $$'s.
TFCU is also offering 60-month Regular Share Certificate, 2.51% APY, $500 minimum.
Early withdrawal penalty is 600 DAYS DIVIDENDS for both.
That means on a hypothetical $100,000 deposit you would have to pay them 4,126.02 if you terminated early. Same money in Jumbo CD would be .10% higher.
Can you join TFCU if you don’t live in El Paso?
While there are some tricky ways you might join the point becomes moot because you wouldn’t be able to provide signatures to open the cert by any method but physically visiting a drive through location.
Socialist freeloader!