October 16th, 2009

CD Rate Averages Rise and Fall Amid Bank Earnings Reports

JP Morgan Chase may have scored big the past quarter with its reported earnings of almost $3.60 billion, but Bank of America continues to struggle, and today announced a loss of $2.24 billion.

Bank of America’s newly-acquired investment bank Merrill Lynch did make some profit from bond, stock, and currency trading, but unfortunately this was not enough to cover for rising losses from failed consumer loans. Both banks maintain that at this point, recovery is still very slow especially in the consumer loans market.

Now the question remains as to how the revenue reports of the country’s top banks affected current CD rates. It’s too soon to tell, but whether or not CD trends this week may somehow be connected in any way to the 3^rd quarter results, one thing’s for sure — CD rate averages are going the same way as they did last week.

6-month CD, 12-month CDs

The 6-month and 12-month CD rate averages are continuing their downward slide which started two weeks ago. This week, the 6-month CD dipped further from 1.02% to finally hit the 1.00% mark. Will we be seeing a less than one percent average for 6-month CDs next week? That possibility is not too far off now.

In the meantime, the 1-year CD rate average inched even further downward, going from 1.34% to 1.31% this week, or a 3-basis point decrease.

24-month, 36-month CDs

As with last week’s results, the 2-year and 3-year CD rate averages saw positive gains this week, with the 24-month CD ticking upwards from 1.72% to 1.74%, and the 36-month term now having an average of 2.11% from 2.08% previously.

48-month CDs, 60-month CDs

The 4-year and 5-year CD rates showed little or no changes at all, with the 48-month CD maintaining an average of 2.42%, and the 60-month CD just showing a single basis point hike from 2.66% to 2.67%.

Bank CD Rate Hikes and Rate Cuts

Quite a number of banks adjusted their CD rates this week, although none were too high or too low so as to cause sudden surges or dives in the national averages. Astoria Federal had the highest rate increases this week, while UFB Direct and Valley National Bank made the most and lowest rate cuts. On the whole however, this week’s changes in the CD rate averages were hardly significant enough to be conclusive of things to come in the next few weeks. So as always, savers will have to sit tight and wait until the report from banks are deemed good enough to merit better CD rates.

About the banks

Chase

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) is a leading global financial services firm with assets of $2.2 trillion and operations in more than 60 countries. The firm is a leader in investment banking, financial services for consumers, small business and commercial banking, financial transaction processing, asset management, and private equity.

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Bank of America

Bank of America is one of the world's largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small and middle market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other. It operates in 32 states, the District of Columbia and 30 foreign countries.