The AS&T Money Center: Helps Big Spenders Cash In on Fast Interest Shifts
Interest rates, to no oneÛªs prediction and everyone's surprise, have played a most spectacular game of ladders and chutes this year.</br></br>And while record interest rates have made it a bad year to borrow, they conversely have also made it a great year for individuals or companies with sufficient idle cash to play what is colloquially known as the money markets.</br></br>Though the prime lending rate banks charge to their most creditworthy customers lias hit 10 per cent, banks have uncharacteristically had to pay even moreÛÓin the form of minimum $100,000 cerificntes of depositÛÓto get some of that money to lend.</br></br>In the last ten days, the tido turned and interest rates appear to have peaked. Indications that the Federal Reserve Board let the reins on the nation's money supply slacken sent Treasury bills, commercial paper, bank certificates of deposit and other money market instruments tumbling even faster than they climbed.</br></br>In the midst of the money market liurly burly, WashingtonÛªs American Security & Trust Co. has offered a service unique in this area to its cash-flush customers which gives them the opportunity to take advantage of the rapid shifts in interest rates.