Treasuries

Treasuries are considered one of the safest instruments for investors to take advantage of guaranteed yield since they are directly backed by the U.S. government.

Treasury bills, or T-Bills, are a type of short-term Treasury with a maturity of 1-year or less. Holding T-Bills, or money market funds and ETFs that hold T-Bills, is a smart alternative to a traditional savings account.

To start, investors can:

• Read our guides on how to buy Treasury bills from all major brokerages.
• Build a Treasury Bill ladder to reinvest proceeds from mature T-Bills and create a strategy to balance yield and liquidity.
• Dive into more advanced Treasury bonds. You may be interested in floating rate notes, which track the 13-week Treasury bill rate, or Series I Bonds and their variable interest rates. Another inflation protection product is TIPS, which have a fluctuating principal, and the ETFs that hold them.

Interested readers may want to compare Treasury bill investments to money market funds, brokered CDs, and ultra short-term Treasury bill ETFs. To learn how these compare to these other investments for your brokerage, read our Brokerage Mastery guides for your specific platform.

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