When Cash Beats Treasury Bonds

The U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C. (Source: Treasury.gov)

The U.S. Treasury in Washington, D.C. (Source: Treasury.gov)

Certain truths are thought to be self-evident, like the idea that bonds always pay more than cash in the bank. In today’s interest-rate environment, that’s not true. The highest interest Max members can earn is now 1.05%, while the 5-year U.S. Treasury bond currently yields 1.03% and the 3-year bond yields 0.77%. It’s part of the worldwide flight to high-quality assets after the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union. Many investors are worried that “Brexit” may severely hurt the world’s economy.

What does this mean for investors? Both yields are backed by the U.S. government; the Treasury bond is a government obligation, while Max members are holding their cash within FDIC-insured savings accounts at online banks that are also guaranteed by the government. So the risk profile is the same.

FDIC-insured bank deposits are fully liquid, meaning you can withdraw your money at any time. Bonds, on the other hand, aren’t risk-free; changes in interest rates can cause their prices to rise or fall, introducing what’s known as duration risk. If you buy a bond now and then yields rise, you’re locked in at the old, lower yield, meaning the market will be willing to pay less for your bond and the price will fall.  So unless you hold it to maturity — the entire five years — you’ll lose money.

While buying a Treasury bond means you’re exposed to changes in interest rates, Max members benefit from optimized rates. If the rates on their online savings accounts change, Max will automatically rebalance their funds into higher-earning accounts.

So why would anyone buy Treasury bonds?  Normally, if you’re willing to lock up your money for longer periods of time, you get paid more for taking that duration risk. But not today. At these yields, you can earn more with overnight bank deposits than you can even on a five-year Treasury.  This inefficiency impacts hundreds of billions of dollars of cash held by individual investors.

We built Max to make it easier for individual investors to more effectively manage the cash that they hold, whether it’s in their bank accounts or brokerage accounts.  Max simultaneously delivers higher yield and broader FDIC insurance coverage, with full liquidity, and without switching banks.  

The national average yield on cash held in savings accounts is 0.11%, and many bank and brokerage accounts pay even less. If you’d like to earn more on your cash, or are seeking broader FDIC insurance coverage, or want to keep your funds fully liquid and don’t want to take the risk of investing in Treasurys when it seems like yields have nowhere to go but up (and thus the value of those bonds have nowhere to go but down), keeping cash in high-yielding online savings accounts might be the answer for you.

You can learn more about Max by visiting www.MaxMyInterest.com.