This investment is safe from both Trump and the Democrats — and it pays 4.7%
- 912810FQ68
- 912810FH69
If you’re nervous, alarmed or hysterical about what’s going on in Washington and on Wall Street right now, there is at least one safe haven you can buy today that is effectively guaranteed to ride out any storm. And it is currently paying 4.7% interest.
I’m talking about U.S. Treasury bonds — IOUs issued by Uncle Sam — that come due in early 2029, shortly after the (scheduled) end of the Trump administration.
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No matter what happens in U.S. politics or finance, the chance that the U.S. government would default within the next three years is effectively nonexistent.
Famous last words? Even the gloomiest prognosticator doesn’t see a fiscal crisis being realized in anything like that time frame.
Yet the panic about the budget, combined with panic about inflation and everything else, has driven the interest rate available on 3-year Treasury bonds to remarkably high levels.
The best rate available at the moment is on the Feb. 15, 2029 “zero-coupon” Treasury bonds (CUSIP: 912833XN5), which will pay you 4.7% a year between now and when it comes due. That will be less than a month after America gets a president who doesn’t think the appropriate response to a war, $100-a-barrel oil CL00 BRN00 and a U.S. fiscal crisis involves renaming Lake Ontario, threatening Iceland or trying to bribe voters with $5,000 of their own money.
A zero-coupon Treasury bond can best be understood as one that doesn’t pay interest as it goes along, but pays you the full amount — return of principal, plus all the accumulated interest — on the due date.
In this case, if you invest $1,000 in the bond, you will get back about $1,118 soon after President Vance, Rubio, Ocasio-Cortez, Beshear, Whitmer, MTG or Laura Loomer is sworn in.
Most of the time, you can sleep even easier if you buy inflation-protected Treasury bonds instead of regular Treasury bonds. These bonds, known as TIPS, use a complex system to ensure that you are compensated no matter what happens to consumer prices over the life of the bond. Right now, the April, 2029, 3.875% TIPS bond 912810FH69 will pay you 2.3% a year plus inflation over the life of the bond.
As inflation is currently running at over 3% a year, if this persists you’d earn 5.3% a year. Inflation would have to average less than 2.4% a year over the next two-and-a-half years for these bonds to work out worse than the regular 4.7% Treasurys mentioned above.
