$100k CD matures - where to put it now

How is Schwab working out? Someone here posted amazing free benefits for them that I never heard confirmation on. Anyway, not sure if you are proposing to change your asset allocation (but we don't know your current) or else considering a like replacement for a low risk low yield asset.

First allow me to vent and scream YEEOW! My new monitoring technique failed to note the recent crash in high yield and convertible bonds. Are they tied so closely to Greece, yet my better-off emerging bonds aren't? Is this just a just an overreaction to a US soft spot? I don't think I got to use my joke that you can spell quality as J-N-K. Anyway, they are on sale cheap if you feel like a gamble.

Well, corporate bonds and tips seem to be doing more steadily well. Someone here warned that tips could put you in a low return trap if there was stagflation, so I am looking into WIP which seems to be foreign tips under real inflation. It's all premature from me since I am caught off guard with my oversight.

My last reply to a similar question worked out well so far. Say you like the market behavior of some higher risk bond funds (they are resistant to some problems due to higher interest) but don't want that much risk. What I did for that is to pair cash with a fund like EMB which seems to cut both the risk and return in half. I think I got pushback here about the EMB portion, but you gotta think of it averaged together. I think you may get less dips from a jump in interest rates this way vs 100% in a lower returning bond fund.

Dumstruck I always enjoy your posts. Your comment above brought a smile to my face. I remember a similar event in my past - it was one of a long list of lessons learned on the way to becoming a passive investor.

Hopefully you have time to put this lesson into practice. Good luck.

On the contrary, my high yield bond FHIFX has accumulated 65% total return in just over 2 years. Looking at fidelity total return charts, one could only exceed that to the tune of 67% by buying at the

03/09/09 bottom - I must have been a week late waiting to confirm the uptrend. If I bought it even a long time earlier, it's price was higher than it is now (eg. hasn't recovered, although has been firehosing dividends).

My JNK and CWB acquisition was less well timed but they still about equal their purchase price. Their share stumble at first alarmed me, but one factor is they deducted for large half=year dividends way late into June - the memorial holiday must have delayed it. I don't know if the remaining dip justifies a sale of these volatile things due to early warning of geopolitical events. But I am trying to be a less tardy seller, and quite appreciate this thread waking me up to see a hole in my bond monitoring process.

So whither TIPS?

I also have a little spare cash and was thinking of buying Prudential since its stats look so good.

I like to be fully invested in stocks especially with CDs and bonds paying little interest.

-- Ron

Until the end of summer, I'd hold cash. The stock market looks like it is set for a 'correction' after a huge upward move within the past two years. There are some very high quality stocks to buy when good entry points (low prices) present themselves.

CNN or CNBC put out a series of articles explaining some of the interconnections between Greece, Ireland, France, Portugal, Germany, GB, and central banks. The issue it seems to me is the amount of leverage banks have on the Greek bonds (and Credit Default Obligations). Obviously, the philosophy behind the Greek deficits and debt is the underlying problem, and it must be solved all the way across the ocean to the U.S.. Some still refuse to see the reality (e.g. Greek 'protestors' with slogans like "America, give us our money back"). But this ('protesting') is contributing to uncertainty, which prompts flight to quality, institutional style. The good news is that rationality seems to be prevailing in Greece, as in GB and other E.U. countries and the U.S..

The end of QE2, and the pace and structure of the U.S. economy, and the resolution of the deficit and thus debt ceiling, are also factors in the current thought. If a buying opportunity presents itself in high quality stocks, then put some of the 100k there. Stocks are a 'participating interest' in producing assets and will rise as production rises.

Au contraire (this is a classy post.)

I not only know that Greece is going to collapse into anarchy, but I know when (Fall, 2011). And I know this because my fabulous wife and I have a trip scheduled there at that time. (We also were in Egypt when it exploded.)

Seriously, I recommend chilling. All market cycles, recessions, wars, economic expansions, etc. eventually end and next month we will have something else to freak out about.

Meanwhile, live within your means, save regularly, diversify and watch your costs. Do that long enough and you won't care about the news.