Beating Broke

Yesterday, WaMu lowered their interest rates on their high yield interest bearing savings.  Today, ING Direct announced a similar move.

WaMu dropped their rate from 4.0% down to 3.0%.  Not entirely unexpected given their recent troubles and their buyout by JP Morgan Chase.  ING lowered their rate a little less drastically from 3.0% to 2.75%.

With the FED lowering rates again yesterday as well, I’m looking for the rest of the online savings rates to drop a little as well.  ING is usually the first to react to moving rates at the FED with the others close to follow.  I would expect that most of the rates will drop somewhere between 2.5% and 3.5% before too awful long.

Even at rates that low, it beats the heck out of my local banks and credit unions rates.  My Credit Union currently pays 0.25% on my savings there.  Need I tell why I don’t keep much of a balance in there?  With access to my ING or eTrade accounts just a few days away, unless there’s an immediate emergency, I don’t feel the need to waste my money on a quarter percent rate.

Finally, at this point, I don’t think it would be smart to start moving money around to take advantage of higher rates elsewhere.  Give it a week or so and then re-evaluate the landscape.  That should be long enough for the banks to react to yesterdays FED move.

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