Interest rates drive decisions: Should I save or invest? Should I rent or buy? Should I borrow or spend?

Jeff Messer, Director and Mike Geraty, Manager

This weekly update provides facts and figures from the capital markets that we hope you find useful. 

We begin with overnight rates and end with 30-year bond yields. We focus on the week-over-week change, highlighted in yellow. We also provide quarter-to-date and year-to-date changes for reference.

Dislocations in the municipal bond market present an investment opportunity.

• The yield on 1-year AAA municipals is currently 1.03% versus 1.07% last week. 
• The yield fell by 4 basis points.  A basis point is 1/100th of 1.00%, or 0.01%. 
• Compare that to the 0.14% yield on the 1-year Treasury bill. 

Should I invest in the municipal or the Treasury? 

We also included key foreign exchange rates, S&P 500 index, gold, crude oil, inflation expectations and real interest rates.

This information should not be construed as a recommendation of a particular investment strategy, it is being provided for illustration purposes only.  The commentaries provided are opinions of Baker Tilly Investment Services, LLC.  While the information is deemed reliable, Baker Tilly Investment Services, LLC cannot guarantee its accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose and makes no warranties with regard to any results to be obtained from its use, or whether any expressed course of events will actually occur.  Past performance does not guarantee future results.

Baker Tilly Investment Services, LLC is a registered investment adviser and wholly-owned subsidiary of Baker Tilly US, LLP, an accounting firm. Baker Tilly US, LLP, trading as Baker Tilly, is a member of the global network of Baker Tilly International Ltd., the members of which are separate and independent legal entities.

For more information on this topic, or to learn how Baker Tilly specialists can help, contact our team.