Saturday, November 14, 2009

Low Bank CD's Make Save Investing Hard

By Skip Safert

Because of the significant downturn in the world economy people are quite hesitant to invest these days. Investments should be examined thoroughly since money is the determining factor of a person's life status and stability. To obtain reasonably high returns, people are searching for ways to invest that are safe.

One of the most common investments is to put money in a bank CD. Also called a certificate of deposit, a bank CD is a type of investment in your bank that takes a certain amount of money and locks in a predefined interest rate for a certain period of time. The bank basically puts a hold on the money so you can't spend it, but you also earn interest on that money to compensate. If you get your money out early there is normally a penalty fee that you have to pay.

Putting money in certificate of deposits is basically the same as putting money into your savings account, but the interest rate (profit) is normally a bit higher. It pays more due to the prearranged nature of the deal since you can't take your money out for a certain amount of time. Since the deal is locked in the bank can be more flexible in using the invested money to earn returns for themselves.

You should never put money into a bank CD that you cannot do without, and you should always consider this before you commit money. As the length or term of your bank CD increases, so does the interest rate. This means that the bank has more options to use your invested money. The bank sets the appropriate rates to make sure the investor is compensated fairly for their commitment. The essentials are that the longer the certificate of deposit lasts, the better the interest rate will be.

Convincing as it may sound, certificate of deposits may not always be a wise choice of investment. This is due to the fact that the rates the bank is paying an investor for money invested are usually quite low. If it is determined that a better rate of return can be made in stocks or some other investment vehicle, putting money in CD's may not be the best choice.

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