Where to park cash?

[WillBrink]

Rates being up, market being very volatile, etc. Where does one park cash? Bonds, Cds, etc? in the 6m -2y time frame?

[utahjeepr]

T bills, 2 year T bond, bond funds, money market account are all viable options. There are also CDs, but I'm not personally a fan.

Big factors are how much do you want to be involved in managing your money, how much (if any) risk are you willing to accept (Treasury vs corporate and "junk" bonds for example), and how easy of access to the funds might you need.

[mack7.62]

I would invest in the 3 B's, beans, boolits and bullion.

[yoni]

If you think bad times are coming AU

[utahjeepr]

You could also go with Steyr's plan. Full autos have historically beaten inflation and the stock market. Not the most liquid of investments but...

Too bad there is no exchange traded fund for belt feds.

[1_click_off]

Capital one 360 performance savings accounts are earning over 3%. Not .03% but actually over 3%. No mínimum to open or hold in the account. You can move it whenever you want, so nothing is tied up.

[SteyrAUG]

You could also go with Steyr's plan. Full autos have historically beaten inflation and the stock market. Not the most liquid of investments but...

Too bad there is no exchange traded fund for belt feds.

Will NFA you really have to be willing to park them for 10 years and then allow of up to a year for a buyer to stop trying to nickel and dime you to death and just pay your ask price. Otherwise you get people who just go "F that, 6 years ago I could buy one for $6,000 there is no way I'm paying $10k."

Also never be in a position where you HAVE to sell, people can just smell it and they will see if they can offer you 60% and wait you out.

I've had people bitch about the price, but in every situation, I was willing to keep it for another 10 years and get an even bigger return.

[kerplode]

Yeah, I wouldn't park cash in NFA. By cash, I mean money I might need in the next 0 to 2 years.

NFA is like real estate. It's proven to be a solid investment, but it's pretty illiquid, so it's a long game. If you have to sell in a hurry, you might take a sizeable hit.

T-Bills are interesting, but it's kind of confusing to buy them (for me anyway). I've just been going with a run-of-the-mill high-yield savings account. Lots of options with most currently yielding over 3%. I'm using Marcus...Yield is currently 3.75%. And it's a saving account, so you're not locked in to any time-frame for your deposit.

[henri]

T-Bills: reasonable return, liquid, and fairly safe investment. However, I would also keep at least 25k-50k in cash i.e, secure safe place in your home.
Economic picture may not appear to be the brightest BUT people are still buying homes, autos, etc. Fluctuations always occur as you very well know, S&P index fund almost always produces good results long term. If one thinks the US will turn into Mad Max Venezuela, Zombie Apocalypse, SHTF-WROL, The Road type scenario, then just buy ammo, food, water and build a wall around your home; that's a rather sad way to live and I doubt the future is that bleak, tad harsh for some maybe, but overall not that bad.

[SteyrAUG]

NFA is like real estate. It's proven to be a solid investment, but it's pretty illiquid, so it's a long game. If you have to sell in a hurry, you might take a sizeable hit.

The big difference is the NFA market never really crashes. It kind of only every goes in one direction, but it's still a long game. The nice thing is you can shoot them in the meantime. You have to really get lucky to be in a position where you can just "flip" something, there isn't such a thing as a dealer price anymore.