Low for the foreseeable future

Ben Bernanke's recent testimony before congress indicated that he is still planning to keep interest rates low until the economy continues to rebound and the job picture improves. With unemployment still at double digits there is no real reason to raise interest rates now. Last week stock traders were jolted when the Fed decided to raise the discount rate to 0.75%, but this rate is for banks lending to other banks and does not affect the rates which change the interest on your credit cards or CD's. So even though savers continue to lament the fact that interest rates are extremely low in bank savings, money market and CD accounts, they need to get used to it and look for other avenues for higher yields. There are still some deals in corporate bonds and corporate notes depending on your time horizon. Dividend paying stocks offer another option, but with a lot more risk to your principal. Bond ETF's and TIPS offer more stable options to stocks and should not be ignored. While there is still a lot of gold hawkers out there, gold does not pay income and could be more of a risk for loss now that it was a year or so ago. As Dana Carvey's SNL character George Bush used to say, "Stay the course...a thousand points of light...stay the course!"