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3 big reasons to open a CD this December
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2023 has been a difficult year for borrowers. Thanks to decades-high inflation and a series of aggressive rate hikes meant to tame it, borrowers paid significantly more for credit than they would have just a few years ago. At the same time, savers have been able to benefit from today’s high rates with substantial returns on vehicles like high-yield savings and certificates of deposit (CD) accounts.
The window of opportunity on these account types, however, may be closing. Those looking for CDs, in particular, should strongly consider acting this month before the rate environment becomes less favorable. Below, we’ll break down why savers considering a CD should open one now.
Start exploring your CD account options here to see how much more interest you could be earning.
3 big reasons to open a CD this December
Here are three big reasons why you may want to open a CD before the year is out.
Rates are very high
The most obvious reason to open a CD now is the high rate savers can secure. Whether you’re considering a short-term CD (12 months or less) or a long-term one (multiple years), you can secure an APY of 4% to 5% online right now. Select savers may even qualify for a rate as high as 7%. That’s a significant amount of money to be made simply by transferring your funds from one account type to another.
How much money are you potentially looking at? A $5,000 deposit into a 1-year CD with a rate of 4.5% would result in $225 in interest by the time it expires. The same deposit amount in a 3-year CD with the same rate would leave savers with an extra $705 by the time it expires. Plus, those rates are locked, so you’ll earn today’s APY long into the future, even if the overall rate climate becomes less favorable for savers.
Get started with a high-interest-earning CD account here now.
But rates may drop in 2024
Higher interest rates on CDs have come about due to the Federal Reserve’s battle against inflation. But that battle may be won in 2024 as the Fed gets closer to its target inflation rate goal of 2% (it currently sits at 3.2%). If inflation cools enough in 2024, rates will remain paused and can potentially even drop at some point.
So, if you want to earn the highest rate possible, it makes sense to open a CD this month ahead of potential rate drops next year. While those rate decreases are unlikely to be dramatic, every dollar counts, particularly when you know that you could have made more by acting aggressively a few months sooner. By opening a CD this December, you’ll have made the right money move at the right time.
The alternatives aren’t as beneficial
While high-yield savings accounts also have high rates right now, they’re not quite as high as the best short-term CDs. Plus, the rates on high-yield savings accounts are variable, meaning that they’ll change (and drop) as the rate climate cools.
CD rates, by contrast, are locked for the full CD term (although you’ll need to pay an early withdrawal penalty to get your money before the term expires). And regular savings accounts have negligible interest rates currently with the national average sitting at just 0.46%, according to the FDIC. So you’re essentially losing money by not transferring your funds into a CD instead.
The bottom line
While there’s no perfect time to make any financial decision, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better moment to open a CD than right now, in December 2023. By doing so, you’ll immediately reap the benefits of today’s high interest rates and you’ll have them locked against the prospect of a rate drop to come in 2024. Plus, when stacked against the alternatives, like high-yield savings and regular savings accounts, the benefits of a CD account become even clearer. As usual, however, be sure to do your homework in advance in order to find an account with the best rate and minimal fees and penalties.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has not endorsed Donald Trump, the financial giant said Friday after the former president claimed in a social media post that the executive, America’s most prominent banking industry leader, was supporting him.
“Jamie Dimon has not endorsed anyone. He has not endorsed a candidate,” Joe Evangelisti, a spokesperson for the New York-based bank told CBS News in a statement.
The denial came after the Republican presidential nominee posted a screenshot on his Truth Social account falsely stating, “New: Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has endorsed Trump for president.”
Trump told NBC News he didn’t know about the post, which was still visible on his account as of 5:10 p.m. Eastern Time.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Seemingly coming from a verified account on X earlier in the day, the post swiftly drew attention from various pro-Trump accounts before Trump weighed in.
Before Trump won the Republican nomination for president, Dimon had expressed support for former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley during the party’s primaries.
Friday’s Truth Social post is not the first in which Trump incorrectly suggested winning support by a high-profile person. The former president in August posted AI-generated images claiming that Taylor Swift was backing him. The superstar endorsed his opponent, Kamala Harris a few weeks later.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a new way for Americans to look up how high or low levels of viruses like COVID-19 and flu are in their local area for 2024.
This year’s new “community snapshot” is the CDC’s latest attempt to repackage its data in one place for Americans deciding when to take extra precautions recommended in its guidelines, like masking or testing, going into the fall and winter.
It centers around a sweeping new weekly metric called “acute respiratory illness.” The metric’s debut fulfills a goal laid out by agency officials months ago, aiming to measure the risk of COVID-19 alongside other germs that spread through the air on a single scale from “minimal” to “very high.”
“The biggest thing we’re trying to do here is not just to have a dashboard. It’s not just putting a bunch of information in front of people and kind of expecting them to navigate all of that,” the CDC’s Captain Matthew Ritchey told CBS News.
Ritchey, who co-leads the team that coordinates data fed into the snapshots, said the CDC gathers experts from across the agency every Thursday to walk through the week’s data coming from hospitals and emergency rooms, wastewater sampling and testing laboratories.
“All those groups come together, talking through their different data systems and their expertise to say, ‘this is what’s catching my eye.’ And then that’s what we want to tee up for the public,” he said.
Ritchey cited early signs of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, starting to increase this season as expected in Florida, which is called out at the top of this week’s report.
Behind the CDC’s new “respiratory illness” metric
Based on emergency room data, the “acute respiratory illness” metric, grades overall infections in each state or county from “minimal” to “very high.”
That is defined broadly to capture infections from COVID-19 and influenza, as well as a range of other diseases that spread through the air like whooping cough or pneumonia.
A previous definition the agency had relied on called “influenza-like illness” had been too narrow, Ritchey said, with requirements like fever which excluded many patients.
A separate set of standalone levels is still being calculated each week for COVID-19, influenza and RSV.
The formula behind those levels is based on historical peaks and valleys in emergency room trends, which were analyzed from each state.
“We’ve looked over the last couple of years and understand the low points of the year, based on our lab testing, and at that point we say, that’s the baseline or ‘minimal’ category,” said Ritchey.
How to see what COVID variants are dominant
Not all of the CDC’s data made the cutoff to be included on the first layer of the agency’s new snapshot.
For example, while the front page for the general public does mention current SARS-CoV-2 variants like XEC, details about its prevalence remain on a separate webpage deeper into the CDC’s website.
“That whole jumble of lots of acronyms or letters and things like that just don’t overly resonate with them,” he said.
For flu, the CDC is still publishing more detailed weekly updates designed for experts, through the agency’s “FluView” reports.
Those include a weekly breakdown of the “type” – influenza A or B – and “subtype” – like H3N2 or H1N1 – that is being reported to the agency from testing laboratories.
Health authorities closely watch trends in flu subtyping as well, since they can help explain changes in the severity of the virus as well as vaccine effectiveness.
Future changes to come
The snapshot remains a work in progress as the CDC gathers feedback from the public as well as local health departments.
“We have a continuum of users, from the public health practitioner to my parents, providing feedback on how they’re using it. More often, the feedback we get is, ‘hey, I use this to help inform how I work, or talk with my elderly parents,'” he said.
One big change coming later this season is the resumption of nationwide hospitalization data, after a pandemic-era requirement for hospitals to report the figures to the federal government lapsed.
A new rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to start collecting the data again for COVID-19, influenza and RSV is due to take effect in November.
“As that data starts to come in again and gets to a robust enough level, the plan is that it would be incorporated on the site as well,” he said.
Another long term goal is to add information specific to other respiratory illness culprits beyond COVID-19, influenza and RSV.
“We want to be able to talk about maybe some of the other things that are not the big three as well, like mycoplasma and some of those other things too, that we know peak during certain parts of the season,” he said.
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