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Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

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Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#91

Post by UncleMeat »

dpifke wrote: post #85
UncleMeat wrote: post #75

You can't get 9.62% APY. The final data isn't available, but the upcoming rate is going to be way lower.

The yield changes every 6 months. I-bonds bought on or before October 31st are considered retroactive purchases to the 1st of the month, and keep the 9.62% rate until the 1st of April. This is disclosed on the linked page ( https://www.withyotta.com/i-bonds ): I-Bonds purchased now through the end of October will have a 9.62% Interest Rate guaranteed for 6 months. Future changes in rates are not disclosed by the US T…

Yes. And since the next rate will be more like 6% (EDIT: divided twice in my original post), anybody expecting 9.62% APY (which has "year" in the name) is likely to be disappointed.

Let's say you buy today and hold for one year. You get 4.81% after 6 months and then like 1.5% for the next 6 months (you lose three months of interest when you sell if you aren't holding for 5 years). And then you have to pay federal taxes. Let's say 22%. On your 10,000 you net... $492. Not anything close to the eye popping 9.62% being touted.

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#92

Post by UncleMeat »

notch656a wrote: post #83
UncleMeat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not worried given that. YOLO is definitely an interesting approach for a financial company. Didn't people shit all over Plaid for taking this approach? Training people to give their financial credentials to 3rd parties is not the best.

Hey, cut him some slack, he did say he was in the business of "making saving exciting." The risk of handing over your financial credentials is exciting because you never really know what may happen!

I also find the use of ibonds funny for a service that ostensibly exists to encourage people to invest. Pointing people at a vehicle that currently (and for the foreseeable future) offers zero real growth by definition isn't going to make the world into successful investors.

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#93

Post by UncleMeat »

adammoelis wrote: post #62
Rebelgecko wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, how do you handle accounts that require medallion verification to open. Do you stamp it yourself? That could be a nice benefit for people that don't have a brick and mortar bank nearby

We can't support those unfortunately right now. Maybe in the future.

That's like, the primary thing that aggravates people about TD! You speak elsewhere about people having to wait in a line for phone support for hours and the reason people need to do this is because their accounts fail to verify automatically.

Do you support cleanly setting up POD beneficiaries? Do I need to give you my spouses' SSN for that too? Or do they also need a Yotta account?

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#94

Post by pb7 »

It's pretty interesting to see the same Hacker News that is up in arms daily over privacy concerns get excited about handing over to a startup their SSN and other personal information that can be used to open any financial account on their behalf and continue acting on their behalf despite it being against the terms of service and/or law. This same startup will also hold access to the $10K+ account hostage until requested, unless they suddenly go out of business as nearly every startup does, especially ones that mysteriously don't even monetize the services they render.

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#95

Post by snoopy_telex »

UncleMeat wrote: post #91
dpifke wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The yield changes every 6 months. I-bonds bought on or before October 31st are considered retroactive purchases to the 1st of the month, and keep the 9.62% rate until the 1st of April. This is disclosed on the linked page ( https://www.withyotta.com/i-bonds ): I-Bonds purchased now through the end of October will have a 9.62% Interest Rate guaranteed for 6 months. Future changes in rates are not disclosed by the US T…

Yes. And since the next rate will be more like 6% (EDIT: divided twice in my original post), anybody expecting 9.62% APY (which has "year" in the name) is likely to be disappointed. Let's say you buy today and hold for one year. You get 4.81% after 6 months and then like 1.5% for the next 6 months (you lose three months of interest when you sell if you aren't holding for 5 years). And then you have to pay federal tax…

Check "Current composite rates" on https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/i-bonds...

The current rate of 9.62% is the lowest it's ever been, and its never changed drastically.

It's just FUD to claim that it'll drop to 3%.

Also, you're locked in, you can't touch the money for a year, and there's a penalty for withdraw before year 5. It's designed as a safe saving instrument, not a stock market replacement.

I, for one, am glad to have invested every year. It's a nice emergency fund.

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#96

Post by snoopy_telex »

adammoelis wrote: post #14
cantSpellSober wrote: post #12

They just updated the Treasury website in order to meet demand. You took away your value add for Point #1 by making this post, and Point #3 isn't really that hard anymore. Thank you for your transparency in advertising.

They only updated the front end main landing pages, not the core experience of opening accounts logging in, filling out forms, making mistakes. That is all the same as it's always been. Painful.

If I made a mistake in entering my info into Yotta, how are you going to correct it without me going though the TD medallion process?

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#98

Post by matthewwolfe »

dpifke wrote: post #71

TreasuryDirect doesn't have an API, so there's no way to implement this without storing your users' TreasuryDirect passwords. How do you protect those passwords? With reference to https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/31/363.17 , what recourse would I have if I use your service and my TreasuryDirect account is compromised as a result? Your other products include FDIC insurance via Evolve Bank & Trust. I can't imagine…

You wouldn’t necessarily need to store passwords in plaintext. You could keep a password encrypted and then when a user logs in their password is sent along on a request that does the automation and then discarded at the end. Of course that would mean you could only do a read operation on the website once, or else keep the session with the site open internally.

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#99

Post by UncleMeat »

snoopy_telex wrote: post #95
UncleMeat wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And since the next rate will be more like 6% (EDIT: divided twice in my original post), anybody expecting 9.62% APY (which has "year" in the name) is likely to be disappointed. Let's say you buy today and hold for one year. You get 4.81% after 6 months and then like 1.5% for the next 6 months (you lose three months of interest when you sell if you aren't holding for 5 years). And then you have to pay federal tax…

Check "Current composite rates" on https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/i-bonds/i-bonds... The current rate of 9.62% is the lowest it's ever been, and its never changed drastically. It's just FUD to claim that it'll drop to 3%. Also, you're locked in, you can't touch the money for a year, and there's a penalty for withdraw before year 5. It's designed as a safe saving instrument, not a stock market replacemen…

Divided twice by accident. It'll be more like 6%. We've only got one month of data left in the computation we don't know about. Doesn't change the math that somebody excited about getting 9.62% over the next year is going to be disappointed when they walk away with half of that.

Re: Show HN: Earn 9.62% on US Treasury I Bonds on Yotta

#100

Post by LastTrain »

adammoelis wrote: post #55
rkagerer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if you go out of business and a user doesn't realize until a year or more afterwards that they should have asked you for that info? Can they "reclaim" their Treasury Direct account down the road without you?

Yeah we have very easy way to give you your TD account directly. If this were to happen, we would give access to everyone and ensure they received the information to take over their accounts.

If it is very easy, explain how they would work if you went out of business. You know, doors locked, no employees. Probably more than a few of us have worked for companies where that happened…
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