SGOV

MarthaJulietta

Thank you for that but I am not worried about beating market returns. To explain clearly if I have 100k account value and the margin req is 30%, I am allowed to sell 70k notional value in puts (seems to be more in reality) without incurring any margin charge. That is what I am doing. I am taking the premium from those sales and putting it into SGOV to receive short term interest rate on that and using it for cash for when I inevitably get assigned on something. It’s not free money but if I can find 1.5% a month plus SGOV returns it could provide some serious extra juice to my account

MarthaJulietta

I’ve been on a bit of a heater of late and can’t wait for Monday every week. Monday deposit + DCA + Sell outs with spare space + put premium into SGOV seems too easy. I know I’m gonna get my butt but at some point selling all these puts but right now this train is rolling and with a bit of luck I can make it through the EOY pulling in 1-3% a month and get enoufh lead that the bite doesn’t hurt too much.

Eyoba_19

Glad you liked it, Not sure how you could use BOXX as a financing tool, but might be good to earn yields if they're better than BIL or SGOV on short term rates.

Investinurself

$300k in SGOV. It Will last a long time if everything crashes. It's less than 10% of my portfolio so I don't think that I'm constantly second guessing it's way too much. Helps me sleep at night.

SoundOff2222

Right. It could be making 3.8% or so if sitting in SGOV. There is an Old saying, Sell in May, go away, buy again after St Ledgers Day(Americanized to Labor Day) St Ledgers day has something to do with horse races or dog races, not sure - but its in the Fall.

nutsbonkers

It's all in SGOV, ready to liquidate in my brokerage account. I just hope I can notice when a decent time to buy is. I know ill never time it perfect but...idk i should stop worrying so much.

ecphiondre

I need just one Gamestop/Tesla moment in my life. Just one true moonshot where I am early. I will delete Reddit, put my money into VT + SGOV and never trade again.

Colonel_F0rbin

I personally hold almost no bonds in my portfolio except short duration treasuries through SGOV as part of my emergency fund. I'm not advocating for or against bonds. What I am saying is it you have absolutely no idea what bonds are and, and have grossly misunderstood the mechanics of price and yield in your posts

Fart-Fart-Fart-Fart

What can they do that you can’t? If you don’t think it’s a good time to invest in stocks, just buy SGOV and turn on drip.

MaddRamm

SGOV for HYSA rates with no risk of fluctuating principal.

Exquisite-Load8654

Micron, Microsoft, google, and VTI are my largest positions. SGOV and VTI are my only non-tech related investments.

hangster

This is exactly that. Been laid off numerous times, has always taken so long to find new work etc... I keep a good chunk, just incase. It doesn't take long for things to flip around. Is your healthcare, salary, life insurances etc... and even your partners/kids/etc also tied to your work? One board room decision changes all of this for you. Typically for me, I've seen this come during a market downturn... so I'd rather lock up my money in a HYSA or SGOV or something vs thinking I can just take it out of the market. Clearly - its a conservative view, but it lets me sleep better at night (which is worth a whole lot).

ArcDogRob

SGOV diamond hands is the way to be atm lol

animalinstinct10m

Buffer ETFs are a good supplement. A 100% buffer from Innovator gives you S&P upside (up to a cap) with 100% downside protection. That way, you earn more than SGOV or a MM mutual fund, have liquidity, and don't pay taxes on income (like you would with a HYSA, CD, MM mutual fund, or Treasury ETF). The tax impact is when you liquidate but it will be at the capital gains tax rate rather than the ordinary income tax rate. Didn't answer the question of amount as that depends on many of the risks that others have already addressed.

ItsJustAnOpinion_Man

6 months expenses for me. Only serious liability is mortgage.  I keep a lean checking account (terrible rate and limit exposure to theft/fraud). Basically 1 month of expenses in and out. Savings account for basically immediate access. Another 1 months worth.  Remaining is in investment account in SGOV. Access in 2-4 days depending on transfer timeline. Enough of a limit on credit card to cover me until I can access SGOV.

krantmin

Keeping 2 years worth in SGOV. I am in IT area. Jobs area flaky as of now because of AI, and the IT job market is pretty bad. New job may take anywhere between 1 month 2 years. :-)

MagisterVerde

And as someone below said, most isn’t literally in cash; my emergency fund was entirely in a HYSA, but I recently transferred most of it to a brokerage invested in SGOV. Why? HYSAs invest in short-term treasuries and take some basis points off the top as their fee, so why not skip the spread and invest directly in the same underlying risk profile. The tradeoff is T+1 rather than immediate liquidity, which is why I left 10K in the HYSA to cover me if I get laid off on Friday at 4:30pm of a long weekend 😂

overitallofittoo

In cash cash? One month. Put the rest in SGOV or something.

Me-Regarded

Is SGOV too risky right now?

Dilldo__Baggins

I currently have 168k (16k in checking and 152k in SGOV). It may seem like a lot but I have two little kids and own four properties with mortgages. I’m also a few years until I decided to FIRE, so having a larger cash cushion feels good.

RandyBoBandy636

$175k in SGOV and about $80k in cash. Value in SGOV is treated like 70% cash in brokerages as far as margin is concerned

dogs_gt_cats

HYSA is about $6k. I also keep cash accounts for things like vacation fund, IRA savings, etc that I can pull from in an emergency until SGOV settles and the ACH completes. To their credit, with Fidelity, I *have* had sales settle and ACH happen within less than 24h, but that's probably because of my account size and margin.

Ethanop1a

Where do you have your SGOV that you can access it same day?

dogs_gt_cats

>HVAC companies send you a bill HVAC companies do not always send you a bill, some want payment immediately, especially if they need to buy expensive parts to repair things. It depends entirely on the business. Many small hvac companies and handimen don't have back offices to handle invoicing. For example the only Trane repair guy in our area that answers his phone is a single person with no office or billing staff. He expects payment same day. > Even if they didn't, you can easily go to the local hardware store and buy either a window AC unit or a radiant space heater depending on why your HVAC breaking That covers two types of issue. That doesn't help you if your air handler springs a leak and does a ton of water damage that requires immediate intervention. Or your furnace dies, taking your hot water heater with it and your whole home has no hot water, and you're risking your pipes freezing. There are myriad ways for things to break. I've been a homeowner for close to 20 years now. Emergencies take many forms, and I've learned not to make assumptions about who will/won't be available to help, and how they will/won't accept payment. In the past 2 months I've had about 12k in emergencies (3 major vehicle repairs one after the other, medical issues with our kid, and an HVAC issue where a water sensor kept triggering and shorting our air handler due to a drain clog). About 1 month before that we had a similar issue to what I described above, where the burner on our furnace wouldn't work, leaving us with no hot water for close to 2 weeks. Generally when emergencies happen, they tend to cluster together for some reason. For both hvac issues, we had to pay cash for parts. Anyways, personally, I keep 1 month of spending in a liquid emergency fund in a HYSA, and then keep 6 months worth of "deep emergency fund" in a position in SGOV. If an immediate emergency requires a cash payment I can borrow from another budget for a few days until a sale from our deep emergency fund can replace it. HYSA yields 3%, SGOV is around 3.7%.

Vikkunen

1.5mo total spending in checking, 1.5mo total spending in traditional savings, 4mo essential bills (~2mo total spending) in SGOV allocation in brokerage acct. I'm the unlikely event of a double job loss (wife and I are both in stable, unrelated jobs for different state governments), we would be able to ighten our belt for 6mo or so without touching conventional investments.

dogs_gt_cats

1 month of bills/average spending in a HYSA. 6 months of bills/average spending in a SGOV position.

thorn960

You need to at least put most of that 40k in a high interest savings account or something like SGOV. I only keep a couple of thousand in my checking which earns very low interest.

gap1284

Ouch. Put it into SGOV or VUSB.

atheos42

Is the cash in a HYSA, money market fund, or SGOV? If so, your fine.

anywhoaroundhere

What are you buying in your brokerage? Could be sound plan if you’re buying something low risk like SGOV or an equivalent. All in on MSTR would be a less-than-sound plan.

dope-a-meanie

I’m over 50, single. I work in tech (at an investment bank) and if I lost my job today, I doubt I’ll get back into the workforce quickly, if at all. On top of that, normal medical issues as one ages. I have a years net salary in SGOV and another $15k in a HYSA. Since you mentioned investments, I have a bit over $1m in taxable investments (mostly ETF’s, SPYI produces an income to cover my housing in case anything happens). I should have done better at my age but it’s not the worst situation to be in.

Original-Poet1825

You buy more than just US stocks basically. I personally do 60% VOO 20% VXUS 20% SGOV/BND and forget about it. If there’s a big drop I don’t mind rebalancing

AnselmoHatesFascists

Why not put it in something like SGOV? It pays about 3.6%, and is extremely liquid. You could sell it and have the cash on hand within 2 days.

flyingtiger188

If 20k is all you have in the world I would dump most/all of it in HYSA/SGOV/money market funds or other safe investments. You need to maintain 3-12 months of emergency funds if something bad happens and you can't work or experience a significant unexpected cost.

citygeek

At some point you get enough assets in enough places that perhaps you don’t need to leave it that unproductive. If it were me….i might slowly DCA a portion of it into lower beta assets. Things that go up more than inflation, but are less volatile than the S&P 500. Things like: SCHD, DIVO, JEPI, JAAA, JBBB, CLOZ Note, these can still go down in value, albeit they are much less volatile than the general market and are otherwise “easy to hold.” I think it’s entirely reasonable to earn a blended return of 6-10% on this money without sweating too much. At some point the best defense is a good offense. I’d still always leave a small portion in something like SGOV

Dust-Sea

You could have just bought SGOV, same thing.

ra__account

1. Dividend focused stocks tend to underperform a little bit because they're more stable companies less likely to have a breakout hit again. Coke is going to make money but there's nothing likely that's going to revolutionize their market. 3. I almost exclusively use ETFs and index funds. 1. I'm deep in the tech world and apply what I know to the occasions I do buy individual stocks. 3. As I get closer to retirement, some of my growth funds will be reallocated to be less risky and I'll build a several year buffer of SGOV etc. to ride out crashes without being forced to liquidate. I have enough saved that even if I have to liquidate after burning through several years of stable funds it will be annoying but not horrible. And keep in mind a multi-year crash to that extent also means your dividends are going to be cut and/or suspended. For post-tax holdings, there's no different (*most* of the time) between qualified dividends and long term capital gains. But in-post tax holdings, dividends can force you to take a taxable event that you may not want or need whereas liquidating can be at the time of your choosing.

arBettor

Only if the Fed raises the Fed Funds Rate. But longer term, artificially suppressing long term rates will probably have an inflationary effect that would push the Fed to react with higher short term rates, so maybe eventually SGOV will yield more based on this change. But there should be no immediate impact to SGOV.

SecretPantyWorshiper

What does this mean for regards? Will short tetm Treasury ETFs like SGOV give higher yields?

prcullen1986

Use SGOV

ThinkingOfTheOldDays

park it in SGOV and outperform 85% of people here

Greedy-Wing-5173

Dry powder cash should be held in SGOV until you’re ready to deploy.

_Doomer_Wojack_

Long $SGOV

YTLupo

SGOV overnight is a tiny yield but its better than cash gang

Ok_Scientist_2762

Do you have a safety fund? I would establish that if you don't first. I am 52,not currently working and carry 3 years spending in SGOV to not encounter a forced sale in the short term. So job security and age will play into your answer as well.

onetwothreeekdd

50% is in SGOV. Waiting on dips in a few stocks I have my eyes on.

jfgjfgjfgjfg

It’s in an IRA, state taxes avoidance using SGOV doesn’t matter and would be a detriment due to lower yield.

Trillo52

Dang! That’s crazy. Sorry you had to go through that. Grabe, isang taon. It’s actually partly why I keep a good amount of SGOV in my regular brokerage account. It’s liquid and easy to access.

Trillo52

I have both rolling T-Bills and SGOV

Trillo52

I wouldn’t pull money out of I Bonds just because TreasuryDirect is switching to ID.me. **The login is one issue. What the money is supposed to do is another.** If the goal is simply safe, accessible money, you also have options like **SGOV or short-term T-bills through a regular brokerage account.** SGOV holds very short-term U.S. Treasuries and is easy to buy or sell without dealing with TreasuryDirect. Personally, I like giving money a specific job. If this is your safety money, the goal isn’t to chase the highest return. **It’s there to protect you, stay liquid, and keep you from having to sell long-term investments when you need cash.** Choose the investment based on the job you need the money to do, not because one website is easier to use.

mcrissjr

Surprised people have put up with the garbage that is treasurydirect for this long. SGOV has been my move for years

Zestyclose_Panda_886

If you finally saved 5k for a 5k trip next year, I keep it in something safe like SGOV, because any loss means you can't take the trip you planned. I'd be fine with saving for this in a down market. It'll push things back, but that's ok.

Zestyclose_Panda_886

$300,000 in ETFs Just keep adding to SGOV, huh? *Don't be afraid to pay taxes on profits.* SGOV is a 4% return. VOO or JEPQ is 10%.

15pH

If you finally saved 5k for a 5k trip next year, I keep it in something safe like SGOV, because any loss means you can't take the trip you planned. If you are investing for a potential trip that isn't planned and trying to grow money, then total after-tax returns are all that matter. Everyone's tax situation is different so you need to do your own math (or ask AI), but generally LTCG (VOO) is the best tax treatment you can get, and unqualified dividends (JEPQ) is the worst.

Sagelllini

No, not required, nor do I recommend them. [Here is my write-up on the stocks and cash approach. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/k4gYNhMhTR) [Here is my write-up on 2008 to 2011, which echos what you wrote. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/7U5KoLZjTo) [Here is my toy to a simple financial plan. ](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WQphWoaXtoleI_fhhHXIDWS9xm6rSB8qLWv1dVH7y1A/edit?usp=drivesdk) I suggest making a copy of the Google Sheet, input their numbers, and figure out what they need from their investments. If it's a pretty low percentage, stick a couple of years of that number in SGOV or a money market, put the rest in stocks, and they should be fine.

SomePolack

Still sitting on like $40k cash in SGOV/MM’s and I’m hitting new ATH Oh what could’ve been if I had the balls to invest it in March 😢

milkplantation

What I sense from you post is impatience and envy, both of which will crush you in investing. As the greatest investor of all time has stated, *"The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."* Pay off your debt first as whatever interest you're paying on that will eat into your profit. Then build up 6 months of living expenses and put it in a HISA or purchase SGOV ETF (US short term treasuries). Don't touch that money unless it's an emergency. Then begin investing the $200 a month 90% ($180) in VOO and 10% ($20) in SGOV. In the event there is a correction of 10% or more, sell your SGOV and buy more VOO. If you want to diversify beyond just US holdings, buy 60% VOO and 40% VXUS or 100% VT. That's it. The hard part is being consistent, not tinkering, becoming impatient, or envious. It's simple but it's not easy.

bam2350

IMO, you should be no more than 10% bonds. Just keep jammin' your biweekly into VOO, VTI, or similar. Use SGOV or HYM for bonds -- one is treasuries the other corp bonds paying strong dividends

dudeondacouch

No *additional* risk. You still risk assignment, and just sell SGOV shares to cover buying the shares at your strike, then wheel as normal. Doesn’t mitigate any risk, just allows your capital to earn decent interest along the way. It’s basically a HYSA with less clicks inside your brokerage.

vagabending

You could just VTI and chill and it would probably get as good or better returns with basically no risk in comparison to this. This is needlessly complex. Also HYSA’s are terribly tax inefficient. If you’re going to put money into a safe pile, use SGOV or similar so you’re not paying local taxes at least.

rsandstrom

Just buy SGOV

Probutkickerz

US treasury is what people in finance call the risk free rate, theres not a safer thing on the planet than that supposedly. SGOV is a good choice as well

readperchery

For a 2–3 year timeline, SGOV is safe, but you have reinvestment risk—its yield will fall if short-term rates fall. I’d rather buy individual Treasuries maturing around when you need the money and lock in the yield. Also, SGOV isn’t automatically 100% state-tax exempt; it depends on how much of its income comes from Treasuries and your state’s rules.

Various_Couple_764

Your HSA and is mostly investing government bonds. SGOV invest ingovernement bonds and US bond yield go up and down with the market. HYSA is guarenteeded by government FDIC insurance. No insurance with SGOV but US government has never failed today. So overall there is no real difference between the two. You could however invest in corporate bond fund like CLOZ 8% yield . there his also JAAA 5.5% The main issue is the selling price may be above a or below the purchase price. But based on past history the sale price will be within +$1.5 and -$1.5 of purchase price. And both of there are very safe corperate debt. So the yield will be stable. The increase yield would easily compensate if the selling price is below the purchase price. So overall no significant chang in risk with a higher yield.

Xyrus2000

SGOV is perfectly fine for what you want. Anything longer-term has exposure to interest rate risk.

SageLeaf1

If you put the 70k in a 4% gainer like say SGOV or BOXX you’d now have 72.8k without doing a single other action. Just sayin.

AvianFIu

I'm not joking, reddit is literally the only stock I've ever bought. Everything else is in SGOV cause I hate risking money. I bought RDDT cause I use it and it's a human social media platform in a sea of AI trash. It's also one of the few platforms that doesn't seem to actively fight against you using it how you want to. My thought process is if they ever figure out how to sell ads as good as instagram does I would instantly get 10 million dollars deposited directly into my bank account.

Puzzleheaded-One-607

Even just parked in SGOV, 5 million would yield you almost 200K per year risk free In what world is that “possibly enough to retire?” Yachts and mansions aside (unnecessary flashy stuff), 5 million is wealthy

Infamous_Ad8730

Just so you know, SGOV is not a "stock". It's an "ETF", exchange traded FUND.

legible_print

Can I ask a noob q: how is SGOV better than just holding cash? Is there some return?

NY10

I am seriously considering this move because everything just went up and can’t find the right entry point. Feels like parking money SGOV for the time being isnt bad option here I think. The only down side is that you can’t access it right away.

bwhite9

I’m using VBIL as a savings account. I think there is a bit of difference between VBIL and SGOV but they both just buy short term term treasury.

_Underscore_Unders

If your looking for short term growth SGOV is going to be wayyyy more convenient than actually buying through treasury direct. Your options on that time frame would be limited, and liquidating sgov is simple.

RichardFlower7

I use SGOV as a savings account

MaddRamm

Put it into SGOV and collect that monthly dividend/interest payment at a 3.6% rate. That’s basically equivalent to a high yield savings as far as interest rate.

fallingdowndizzyvr

SGOV savings bonds? SGOV is not a savings bond. It's a ETF. Just an ETF. Sure, that ETF deals in short term bonds but don't confuse the ETF with it's underlying assets. With a 2 year CD, you are guaranteed that rate for 2 years. With a SGOV, you aren't guarantee that your principal will be intact. Sure, it trades stably but that's not a guarantee.

Educational-Play-465

For a 2-3 year timeline I'd buy the 2-year note directly and skip the SGOV roll. SGOV reprices every month and just keeps rolling into whatever the market pays, while the note locks today's rate until maturity.

zero_cool_protege

slightly better tax exemption with tbills than SGOV but yeah for most people its effectively the same

HairyBushies

I’d argue SGOV or an equivalent is pretty much as liquid as a HYSA. If you can’t wait for a 1-day settlement on market days, you may need to look at the bigger structure of your financial life. That’s a non-issue for me. I’m at Schwab and Fidelity. With the latter, my core position with SPAXX is just like cash for all intents and purposes. All my bills are paid from Fidelity. I use SGOV in my Schwab account and it’s not an issue to sell, transfer to my Schwab checking and do whatever is needed as my first backup. And then I have $1,000 cash in a credit union account just in case though I’ve never had to touch that in over 10 years.

FrankDrebinOnReddit

Yeah, I think it's a good idea, though a few things. First, it's not a stock. It's a fund that holds T-bills. Second, it's mostly state tax exempt but not 100% (but above 95%, each they publish the percentage annually since it varies). Also only the interest is state tax exempt, not capital gains, those for this fund those will be minor since the fund value snaps back monthly. Just know that it's close to state tax exempt but not perfectly And third, the rate can go up or down, depending on where short-term interest rates go. SGOV is what I use for my emergency fund.

NecessaryEmployer488

I'm doing CD Ladders write now with 2 year CDs, but am thinking converting to SGOV savings bonds. I'm creating about 3 - 5 years of expenses with bonds to allow more stability for retirement, and keeping my taxes low for retirement.

Dull_Judgment1587

SGOV yield is roughly 3.59% last time I checked. SGOV and HYSA are similar investments and follow the same market trends. If HYSA yields are falling then SGOV yield is probably falling also (and vice versa).

DoinIt4DaShorteez

It's fine. The divs from those funds are ordinary income for Federeal tax, they get taxed the same as wages. I own BIL and I live in a state with income tax and last year something like 95% of the BIL dividend was exempt from state tax. It's probably a similar exempt % for BILS and SGOV but you have to check each year to see what it is. There are a few states that have special criteria and make it little harder to be state tax-exempt.

MadFury_Youtuber

Yeaa, I was considering buying SGOV thru my brokerage and putting money there. I heard for this specific stock, its state tax exemt and tax rate is around: 3.7%- 3.8%. Is this good idea? What u think?

DoinIt4DaShorteez

short term treasury ETFs will be much easier than actual bonds or notes, but you won't get as high a rate. the etfs are in the low 3's now. one reason to use an etf in a brokerage account instead of a HYSA is that if there's a crash, you can sell the etf to raise cash and immediately plunge it into the mkt. BIL, BILS, SGOV are all about the same.

MadFury_Youtuber

I was considering buying SGOV thru my brokerage and putting money there. I heard for this specific stock, its state tax exemt and tax rate is around: 3.7%- 3.8%. Is this good idea? What u think?

MadFury_Youtuber

I was considering buying SGOV thru my brokerage and putting money there. I heard for this specific stock, its state tax exemt and tax rate is around: 3.7%- 3.8%

I_like_code

I use SGOV to hold the money for selling cash secured puts.

FrankDrebinOnReddit

Short term T-bills are both safe and stable (they're not sensitive to interest rates). Longer duration treasuries are safe (they'll pay at maturity) but subject to interest rate risk if you sell before maturity. T-bill funds like SGOV or USFR are the best bets for what you're going for. You can save a bit in expense ratios by buying the treasuries directly, but you end up paying a bit in spread if cashing out early and the amounts involved rarely make it worthwhile for T-bills.

Ok_Scientist_2762

T-bills are as safe as the US economy, bonds much less so. I mostly use SGOV for short term investments as it's .0357 and immune to state taxation.

Dani_Bolsa

The math usually kills this pretty fast. If you're paying 11% on margin, a short SGOV trade still leaves you with borrow risk, dividend liability, and broker margin rules, so the carry you think you're harvesting often gets eaten up by frictions. I learned that the hard way comparing funding trades - on a small balance, the round trip costs matter more than the headline spread. If your real problem is buying power or financing size, that's exactly where I ended up looking at 50K Trade's extra margin up to 1:200 on eligible real stocks and ETFs instead of trying to manufacture a cheaper borrow.

arthriticpug

SGOV is 4.1% rn

austinvvs

Building my rainy day fund in SGOV

SoundOff2222

Commodites, REITS, Gold, SGOV or VTEB.

YTLupo

Im going long SGOV theres just way to to squeeze yield right now its come down to this lmao

YTLupo

Buying SGOV would have been a better yield today

dongkiru

I keep small amount in cash and rest in SGOV or USFR. And sometimes STIP. But I'm not as diligent about it on Fidelity as the cash is automatically converted back and forth into one of the core treasury money market.

LaMeraVergaSinPatas

Once I break even I’ll sell and put it all into SGOV Once I break even I’ll sell and put it all into SGOV Once I break even I’ll sell and put it all into SGOV Once I break even I’ll sell and put it all into SGOV Once I break even I’ll sell and put it all into SGOV Once I break even I’ll sell and put it all into SGOV

Valkanaa

Robinhood does not pay 4.25%. With Gold they pay approximately the same as SGOV shares (30 day treasuries)....which you could do without Gold.

Jaded-Argument9961

I mean 3% Roth IRA match/3% cash back credit card on ALL purchases/$1,000 in free margin you can park in SGOV or BND for free money All that in addition to being able to invest in low cost index funds aka what serious investors do