Comments on: Top Long-Term CD (Certificate of Deposit) Rates

By: aua868s

aua868s — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:58:38 +0000

thinking about giving ally bank a try…but the no-penalty 9 month cd is stopping me from locking my money for 60 months!

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:49:49 +0000

They don’t exist… at least not now.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:44:13 +0000

Look for CD’s with 10%-20% return

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:53:56 +0000

I get 2% in my saving account but I can get 3% in 30 month CD. I don’t know whether I should lock into 30 month for 1%. The penalty is 6 month interest. Personally I don’t believe rates would go up anytime soon. Lets assume that after 6 months rates go to 2.25% and 6 months later it goes to 2.5% and in 2 years it goes to 4%. The average that you might get might be less than 3% that I can get in a 30 month CD.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:46:06 +0000

It’s usually 3 months for CDs of under a year, 6 months for CDs with maturities of a year or more. Each bank does it differently though so you have to check to be sure.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:26:09 +0000

I am afraid to buy long term cds now as rates may go back up while my money sits there. What is a common penalty for an early withdrawal or closeout on a cd?

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:10:59 +0000

I have a list of CDs of varying maturities at the CD Rate Center.

By: Soccer9040

Soccer9040 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:29:56 +0000

Has anyone put together a list of shorter CDs? I have some 12 month CDs in a ladder (some are 4.5% 12 month ones from last year) that are coming to term and I don’t really want to renew at 1.5% (ING), but I might have to.

By: daemondust

daemondust — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:55:35 +0000

It’s amazing how different these long term CD rates are between banks. Why would someone put their money in a 1.75% interest 60 month CD at ING Direct when they could get 3.25% at Ally with the same minimum deposit requirement? With a $1000 deposit, that’s a difference of $85 in interest.

Also, don’t be too fixed on the length. While it does mean you’re guaranteed that return for the entire length of the deposit, many banks seem to also offer ‘teaser’ rates for shorter time periods. My credit union, for example is offering a 1.75% on a 13 month, and 2.1% on a 25 month deposit. Their regular schedule doesn’t get past 1.75% until longer than 2 years, and doesn’t come close to the 2.1%, even at 6 years. They still aren’t the best rates, but an example that shorter periods might have higher teaser rates to try to get people who are wary of their money being locked up for half a decade or longer.

By: D. Roddy

D. Roddy — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:21:15 +0000

I’m just curious to know why USAA isn’t on this listing…I use USAA for CDs and their 60 month CD rate currently is 3.61%! In my opinion USAA is overall better in all rates regardless of the time frame you are looking to invest in CDs.

By: eric

eric — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:01:25 +0000

Yeah long term CDs don’t make sense for me right now. Plus the rates are…. :/

By: Bradford

Bradford — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:45:08 +0000

There are several other excellent banks with top rates at present: check out

USAA (in San Antonio; originally founded for members of the military, but now their banking services are open to anyone: call up and request a member number, and you’re on your way)

iGObanking.com
Hudson City Savings Bank
Discover
and, a little further down, Nationwide.

By: lostAnnfound

lostAnnfound — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:49:09 +0000

Good point about looking at the time-frame until college. This child has five more years till then, so a long-term CD should work fine. The older has just two years to go, so we will take the into consideration when her CDs mature next month.

By: nickel

nickel — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:59:52 +0000

Teenagers are really no different than anyone else (other than perhaps a 3-5 year time horizon due to college tuition payments). If rates are low and you expect them to go higher, you probably don’t want to lock in for a long term. If rates are high and you expect them to go lower, you *should* lock in for a longer period.

By: reinkefj

reinkefj — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:40:16 +0000

For the savings component of a portfolio, my wife and I use a quarterly five year IRA CD ladder for some “mad money”. Yeah, I know “Certificates of Depreciation”. Four quarters over 5 years for 20 “buckets” across three different banks. Portfolio has an average return of 4.6%. It represents less than 2% of our total estate. It’s a “teachable moment” for my wife on what to do if something happens to me like death or disability. She can run a CD ladder and not get cheated by all the “salesmen” out there.