Personal Finance 09 - Understand the Characteristics of Short Term Investments

Remember that the government only representspooled and moves from lenders to borrowers
about 30% of our retirement income, thethrough money markets, financial institutions,
company retirement pension plan offers anothercorporations, governments, and central bank.f)
30 % and many of us do not have one. It is upThe lenders are usually corporations or institutions
to individuals to invest wisely short and long termwith spare cash that can be invested for a short
in order to make up for the short fall if he or sheperiod; the borrowers are those who temporarily
would like to live comfortably after retirementneed extra funds.g) Commercial paper and
without giving up some retirement plans. In thisTreasury Bills are 2 widely used instruments in the
article, we will discuss types of short termmoney market.
investment.2. Government saving bonds
There are 3 types of short term investment andGovernment saving bonds are issued by the
their characteristics are as follows:government and sells directly to the citizen via
1. Money market fundsome financial institutions.a) They cannot be
Money market fund is a way of poolingtraded (but only redeemed), their value does not
contributions from many small investors andfluctuate.b) They are bought at the face value in
managing them by a professional fund managerthe denominations of $100, $300, $500, $1000,
working for mutual fund companies with very low$5000, and $10,000 from banks, trust companies,
fees.a) Money market fund can be liquidcredit unions, and investment dealers.c) Interest
anytimeb) It is one of many saving vehiclesare taxed annually with no commission or fee.
because the interest paid by this fund is low, it3. Saving accounta) Putting your money into your
cannot increase your investment wealth.c) Sincesavings account is considered as the easiest and
the interest received is low, sometimes it maysimplest way to invest by lending your capital to
even fall below the inflation rate.d) If the moneyfinancial institutions.b) Daily savings account is the
market fund is only an investment plan that istype of savings that interest is paid on the daily
used to accumulate wealth for your retirement,balance and is compounded monthly.c) With
you will eventually go broke because of today'sregular savings accounts, interest is paid on the
low interest rate environment and heavyminimum monthly balance and is compounded
taxation.e) Money in the money market fund areevery 6 months.