Interest rates have been around since the dawn of civilization! They can be traced all the way back to 3000BC. It didn’t take long for people to realize the importance of interest rates as a critical part of the borrowing and lending equation.
Interest rates have changed significantly since back in the early days when a 20% rate was a fairly common occurrence. These days, interest rates that high would cause mass panic.
The Federal Reserve sets interest rates in this country and the benchmark rate is called “The Federal Funds Rate!” This is the rate that banks charge other banks to lend Federal Reserve funds to each other for overnight borrowing. This rate must be manipulated for time to time, moved lower to stimulate growth or moved higher to curb inflation.
The reason this matters so much is because of the ripple effects of the Federal Funds Rate. The FFR affects the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on credit cards, home equity lines of credit, auto loans, mortgages, Certificates of Deposit (CDs) and savings account rates just to name a few.
If you look at the history of the Federal Funds Rate, it was at ZERO from 2008-2015, and again at ZERO from March 2020 to early 2022. Lowering this rate helped stimulate economic growth and triggered the real estate and refinance boom over the last 2-3 years. Real estate is starting to cool now that mortgage rates have doubled this year.
You might be asking yourself, what does this all mean? The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets every 6 weeks to evaluate rates. They have never been this transparent as they have stated there will be several more increases this year and possibly the first quarter of next year.
This means, for conservative investors, there will soon be a major “Safe Investment Opportunity” to lock into these higher “Fixed Annuity Interest Rates” for multiple years!
Fixed Annuities are issued by insurance companies as an alternative to bank Certificates of Deposits (CDs). Fixed annuity rates were under 1.9% earlier this year, and in New York State the 5-year and 7-year Guaranteed Fixed Interest Annuity Rates are currently returning over 4%.
Annuity rates could reach 5% by the 4th quarter of this year or the first quarter of 2023, which would be a good time to lock them in for years going forward!
See below to read my Lucky 13 Advantages of Fixed Rate Annuities:
My firm has over 20 years of experience with Fixed Interest Rate Annuities and we have access to over 100 insurance companies to shop interest rates for clients. For those “Financial Wave” readers interested in learning more about major opportunities coming soon for “Fixed Interest Rate Annuities,” feel free to reach out to me at Rob@InsuranceDoctor.us.
My firm has over 20 years of experience with Fixed Interest Rate Annuities and we have access to over 100 insurance companies to shop interest rates for clients. For those “Financial Wave” readers interested in learning more about major opportunities coming soon for “Fixed Interest Rate Annuities,” feel free to reach out to me at Rob@InsuranceDoctor.us.