Correction- JPMorgan Rate 1.69%

I wish I had taken a screenshot of the rate I was looking at when I wrote this post so I can see what I did wrong! I must have been posting much too hastily.

The JPMorgan Municipal Money Market Fund offered in Etrade's Brokerage account currently yields 1.69% This is less than 2.70% it was yielding in December, but much more than the 0.64% I posted yesterday. I did start that post a day or two before I published it but I can't imagine rates changed that much in two days.

My apologies!


Thanks to David for commenting and helping me realize I was wrong. To further clarify: the California Fund Yields 1.56%. This is equivalent to 2.65% if you pay the highest possible Federal and State taxes as a CA resident: "Based upon the highest combined federal and California individual income tax rate of 44.3%."

David asks how to keep up with the best account a bank is offering. First of all, when you do your taxes, calculate your actual tax rate. That will help you get a sense of how much more than 1.56% you are keeping by using a CA specific money market fund as a resident of CA.

Both the bank rate and money market rate have dropped as well as rate at most every bank out there, so the goal is not to find an that is not dropping (if that is your goal, CDs might help, but you'll miss out when rates go up if you are tied up in a CD). Banks (like Etrade) play games with their competition, keeping rates higher a little longer, trying to woo customers over, only to then drop the rate, maybe more than the competition.

If you really want to keep on top of the best bank offers out there, I recommend checking out the Bank Deals weekly summary. If you have an Etrade Brokerage then opening the Etrade Savings account may make sense so that you can keep your cash in either the Brokerage or the Savings account, whichever is better for you at the time based on rates and your taxes. I'm glad I opened the savings account since it can take a while to transfer money to and from the Brokerage account from a non-Etrade bank.

That said- don't close your old bank until your new one is doing everything your old one did.

I am still waiting on an ATM card for the Etrade Checking account I opened in December.

Let that serve as an example of the quality of service you might encounter using discount online services versus a local branch. So assess your tolerance for hassle before making too many changes.