US Treasury Auction Schedule

Auction Schedule for US Treasury Securities: One way the US government finances its debt is by the sale of marketable Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS - more info) to the public. Individual investors, through the US Treasury (www.treasurydirect.gov) or their bank and brokerage accounts, have the opportunity to participate in U.S. Treasury note, bill, bond and TIPS auctions without commissions for new issues.

In every issue of The Retirement Advisor Newsletter we cover upcoming US Treasury Auctions with a more complete auction calendar. We also give our estimate for rates for 3 month bills to 30-year bonds plus 5-, 10- and 20-year TIPS.

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Upcoming Auctions

Security Term	CUSIP Number	Auction Date	Issue Date	Maturity Date
91-day Bill	912795S77	10-26-2009	10-29-2009	01-28-2010
182-day Bill	912795UP4	10-26-2009	10-29-2009	04-29-2010
2-yr Note	912828LT5	10-27-2009	11-02-2009	10-31-2011
4.5-yr TIPS	912828KM1	10-26-2009	10-30-2009	04-15-2014
5-yr Note	912828LS7	10-28-2009	11-02-2009	10-31-2014
7-yr Note	912828LU2	10-29-2009	11-02-2009	10-31-2016
29-day Bill	912795Q53	10-27-2009	10-29-2009	note 1
91-day Bill	912795S85	11-02-2009	11-05-2009	note 1
182-day Bill	912795U41	11-02-2009	11-05-2009	note 1

note 1: tentative subject to official announcement

• Marketable securities can be bought, sold or transferred after they are originally issued.
  
• Treasury uses an auction process to sell marketable securities and determine their rate or yield.
  
• The value of Treasury marketable securities fluctuates with changes in interest rates and market demand.
• Marketable securities held in your account can be sold at current market prices through brokers and many financial institutions.

13-WEEK TREASURY BILL (Historical Quotes for: ^IRX)	5-YEAR TREASURY NOTE (Historical Quotes for: ^FVX)

10-YEAR TREASURY NOTE (Historical Quotes for: ^TNX)

Broker Links:

• e-Trade: 866-420-0007
• Fidelity: 800-544-5372
• Schwab: 877-563-7818
• Vanguard: 800-669-0514 8AM-6:30PM ET

For more details, see:

• More about TIPS Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities
  
  
• US Treasury Rates at a Glance
  
  
• Tentative U.S. Treasury Auction Schedule - PDF File
  
  
• Upcoming Auctions

Managing Your Retirement Portfolio - Rebalancing

At the Retirement Advisor, we are ultimately concerned with helping our subscribers maximize their portfolio returns while minimizing risk. We regularly cover topics to educate our subscribers on how to best manage their portfolios. One such topic is portfolio rebalancing.

Buy Low and Sell High With Rebalancing

Portfolio rebalancing brings your different asset classes back to your target asset allocation after a significant change in one or all. Rebalancing means you sell some of what has done well (sell high) to buy some more of what has lagged (buy low.)

In a volatile market, you can get added return over buy and hold from rebalancing but the main reason we rebalance is to control risk. Let’s use a simple, balanced, two-asset class, $100,000 portfolio made of the total stock market and money market funds from Vanguard (VTSMX & VMMXX) to illustrate.

You start with $100,000:

• $50,000 in VTSMX and $50,000 in VMMXX

Let’s assume the stock market gains 100% over the next ten years (average annual return of 7.2% per year) while the money fund gains 5% per year.

After ten years without rebalancing you have $163,814:

• $100,000 in VTSMX and $63,814 in VMMXX

You rebalance to control risks from bear markets. If the market were drop 50%, as it did in the 2000 to 2002 bear market, then after two more years you would have roughly
$120,355, a total decline of 27%:

• $50,000 in VTSMX and $70,355 in VMMXX

If you have 20 years before you retire for the higher returns of the stock market to make this loss up for you, then you simply wait. But if you are retired, that 27% is a painful decline.

Compare that 27% portfolio decline to a portfolio that grew to $163,814 with regular rebalancing such that it started the two year bear market with

• $81,902 in VTSMX and $81,902 in VMMXX

After the two year bear market, this would become $131,248 a decline of “only” 20% vs. 27% without rebalancing:

• $40,951 in VTSMX and $90,297 in VMMXX

Rebalancing forces you to sell some of your winners to buy more of your losers. In our case, we sold some of the more risky stocks to increase our lower risk cash. For
many of our subscribers, even a 20% portfolio loss is too painful so we offer model portfolios two and three with thirty and zero percent allocated to equities, respectively.

Finally, bonds can do well when stocks do poorly so your total portfolio loss is usually less than shown in our example that used a money fund with constant returns. For this reason, we use bond funds in our model portfolios.

* * *

To learn how to subscribe to The Retirement Advisor Newsletter, visit our web site where you can download a free issue with instructions on how to subscribe. Subscribers are able to obtain all of our back issues at no extra cost.

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Don't Delay Your Financial Health Any Longer!

The Retirement Advisor Portfolios	Dollar Value on 9/30/09	Change
Model Portfolio 1	$208,276	4.1%
Model Portfolio 2	$219,741	9.9%
Model Portfolio 3	$235,541	17.8%
DJIA 12,501.52 on 1/1/2007	$9,712	(24.0%)
S&P500 1,418.30 on 1/1/2007	$1,057.08	(28.0%)

The Retirement Advisor Model Portfolios all began with $200,000 on 1/1/2007

CD Rates at Largest US Banks

This table, updated today, shows the best CD rates for the five largest banks operating in the United States. These banks are Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo Bank, and HSBC Bank North America.

CD rates (APY) at the largest US banks (Current Data) for a $10,000 deposit.

Bank	CD Rates - APY in % as of 10/02/09 for $10,000
	6- Mo	1-Yr	18-Mo	2-Yrs	3-Yrs	5-Yrs
Bank of America (BAC)	0.50	1.45	1.00	2.01	2.30	3.01
JP Morgan Chase (JPM)	0.75	1.25	1.50	2.00	2.25	3.00
Citibank (C)	0.75	1.49	1.73	1.98	2.23	3.44
Wells Fargo Bank (WFC)	0.35	0.50	0.90 16-mo	1.40 21-mo	1.90 27-mo	NA
HSBC Bank North America - Branch & Telephone Rates	0.25	0.55	0.55 15-mo	0.75	0.75	1.01
HSBC Online Rates	1.10	1.85	1.85 15-mo	1.60
US Treasury Rates	0.13	0.34	NA	0.86	1.35	2.20

To see the table in full size with the current rates, click the

• Best CD Rate Survey of the Top US Banks

Notes:

• Bank of America or BofA (BAC stock quotes and charts) was "Nations Bank" before it bought Bank of America and took the name. BofA also bought Merrill Lynch officially as of January 1, 2009.
  
• JP Morgan Chase (JPM stock quote and charts) bought Washington Mutual, fondly known as "WaMu"
• Citibank (C stock quote and charts) is also known as Citigroup & Citicorp
• Wells Fargo Bank (WFC stock quotes and charts) bought Wachovia Bank- that bought World Savings Bank)
  
• HSBC Bank North America is the American subsidiary of UK-based HSBC Holdings plc. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, also a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings, acquired a 51% shareholding in Marine Midland Bank of New York in 1980 and extended to full ownership in 1987. The banks continued to operate under the Marine Midland name until 1998, when the branch offices were rebranded as HSBC Bank USA.