Yes, selling before maturity gets you the market price. So if you look at the latest auction results for a 91-Day bill, $10K in bills sold for about $9925. That a yield of approximately 3% ANNUALLY. 91-Days from now, they will mature at $10K. So essentially between now and then in theory there should be a gradual creep toward $10K. The problem is that short rates fluctuate to some degree, and therefore on a given day the market price could be a little less than you would expect had short term rates increased. But I think you can see that if you bought a 91-Day bill today, and sold it 45 days from now, the chances are high that you would receive more than you paid. Now, the larger problem is that there is a service fee typically to sell the 91-day bills prior to maturity. So if you're dealing in small amounts this can be a bigger issue than the actual price that you receive. The service fee charged by the treasury is $45 I believe. It should be on the site. For this reason, I think the best way to buy Bills is to buy some every week at the auction for 3 months, provided you have capital to do so. This way, as they begin to mature, you should have some maturing every week which you can then roll over into more bills, or which you can use for some other purpose if necessary. You probably would not need to sell them prior to maturity. Or alternatively, space them out further, say every month instead of every week. OldTrader
Where do you people live that your so worried about a safe place to keep money? Anyone remember 9/11? Did the financial system collapse? No. If you buy foreign debt, odds are you are going to lose some return because of exchange rate fluctuations. Diamonds are not investments although it would've been a good contribution to a pretty dumb thread awhile back about alterntive investments. Hell even the Economist had an article about artwork being an investment. LOL. That rag sure does provide some good entertainment.
Great link. Costco now sells diamonds. Most diamonds receive an independent, standardized 3rd party appraisal from the GIA (I believe that stands for Gem Institute of America). So, a 1 carat diamond with the same color, cut, and clarity grade is pretty much the same from one place to the other. That's what 3rd party grading gives you (coins have the same system and it's very successful). Anyway, I explained to my wife that she could get a much better diamond at Costco, and it would be the same grade of stone. She still wanted Tiffany. I explained that she could be paying $5000 more just for the blue box. She still wanted Tiffany. I explained, for the same price, she could get a much bigger and better stone at Costco to show her friends. She still wanted Tiffany. Diamonds are a big con game stemming from the fact that marketers have turned your gal's brain into mush.
The diamond "market" is disheartening from a trader's point of view. Especially with new technology coming online imminently that makes gem-grade diamonds at any size. And I'm likely buying one before the new-tech diamonds are available. I'll just treat it like pure consumption, with the only purpose being to make her a bit happier. Sucks that DeBeers did such a great job brainwashing women. They even hooked the Japanese. From what I hear the Chinese women are next. I look forward to the synthetic diamonds to flood the market and will cheer with glee when that monoply is taken down once and for all...
Interesting. But from what source is the original capital? If it's money they earned, what's the big deal. If you are saying they are getting paid to smuggle , that's a whole nother smoke.
IMO the diamond market is a scam, rigged, hyped, a function of pr and the greater fool theory. A rock, and a crock
A difference without a distinction. Yeah, they are priced like zero's but its only gonna confuse the guy to say they dont 'pay' interest. It's semantics. I guess Savings bonds dont pay interest either. The interest is embedded in the price you get when it matures or you sell.
Don't diamonds actually have a use in lasers? So it's not as if their value is completely derived from DeBeers' commercials and female materialism.
So I guess what you're saying is that we should all "dumb down" what we post since we might "confuse the guy"? You call it "semantics", I call it "correct". OldTrader
ABSOLUTE SAFEST PLACE- GOLD!!!! Even if the US economey colapsed tommorrow from N. Korea dropping Nuclear bombs on us. If you got gold, its readily convertible to any currency in the world. People love gold so much they will pay more than its worth. Check it out Gold Prices http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html What people are paying for an ounce on EBAY http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=547&item=8311334950&rd=1 Fools are paying 5%+ above market for Gold plus 8 bucks for shipping? Funny thing is if you buy it directly from the mint they only charge about a dollar above market for it. (of course they make you buy a minimum of about 10 ounces i believe)