The latest SSB April 2024 offering is released: first-year rate of 2.95% and 10-year average of 3.04%. Wow, that’s a pretty good offering, and we are back above the 3% threshold. Yay! This month’s offering is also better than last month’s. Should we consider this month’s SSB?
SSB April 2024 Details
This month’s SSB offers much better rates than last month’s. The first-year rate is 2.95%, and the 10-year average is 3.04%. Both rates are much better than the previous month’s 2.74% and 2.88%, respectively. We are officially back again to above 3%. Hooray!
With the market expecting interest rates to start reversing this year, it is a relief that we can still get an increase in the SSB rates this month. This could be your opportunity if you have not locked in these higher rates 🙂
If you want to apply for this SSB April 2024, please do so before 25 March 2024. Take note of the following application timeline:
How Competitive Is It?
This SSB April 2024 offers better rates than some of the previous offerings. How competitive is the current SSB offering if we compare it historically? Let’s find out:
There are two things we can observe from the historical chart above:
- The current offering is a significant jump over the previous two offerings.
- The current offering is also around the same range we have seen since late 2022. It is also one of the highest in recent times. It is much higher than what we saw in 2021 and early 2022.
We think this SSB April 2024 offering is pretty competitive and can be a good opportunity for those looking to lock in the higher interest rates for longer. With the interest rates expected to reverse this year, this could be your last few chances to get these higher rates.
Where Are Interest Rates Heading?
The consensus seems to be that interest rates may have peaked and will start to reverse soon this year.
The Fed projected up to three rate cuts this year, with the first one likely towards the second half of this year.
The market is even more aggressive by expecting up to four rate cuts this year, with the first cut expected to be around mid-year.
What do you think? Do you agree with the Fed and the market? If so, there may be only a few more chances to lock in the higher rates before interest rates start to reverse, and this SSB April 2024 can be your opportunity.
Recycle / Swap Older SSBs
So far, none of the SSB offerings have any quantity ceiling this year. It is also likely that this month will not see any quantity offering. Because of the lower demand, this month can be an excellent opportunity to recycle your older SSBs. If you have older SSBs yielding much lower than this month’s offering, you may consider swapping those with this month’s to enjoy the higher rates.
What Would We Do?
We utilize SSB to park our short-term cash. Because we have optimized our SSB holdings to above the 3% threshold, this SSB April 2024 does not offer more competitive rates than what we already have. Therefore, we likely won’t be participating this month.
SSB can be an excellent option for investors seeking capital preservation. It offers long-term investment returns while allowing you to do monthly redemption without penalty and earn the accrued interest. With such flexibility, investors looking to park their short-term cash may also consider SSB as one of their options.
Indeed, we have migrated some of our short-term cash from T-bills to SSB because of this liquidity feature while still locking in higher rates for the next ten years.
Will you be applying for this month’s SSB? If so, you may follow our step-by-step guide on how to buy SSB.
