Peter Crane Cash Quotations

Money funds look very good at the moment, but you don't want to move everything into cash and at some point next year, when the rate hikes are over and the Fed starts cutting, find you've missed your chance to lock in higher long-term rates.

We'll almost certainly see large inflows in the coming weeks, as bonuses, bond coupons and the normal flood of January cash arrives.

We're seeing interest in cash for the first time since 2001, practically, and we expect the interest to only grow as rates continue to rise. Yields are still digesting the Aug. 9 Fed hike and be- ginning to anticipate an almost certain Sept. 20 rise, so we should see yields break through 3 percent and keep going.

The old saw is the Fed hikes until something breaks. Cash has been the place to be, and it likely will be the place to be over the turn into 2006, but then the question is: Will the Fed be done raising rates at the end of January? Nobody is really sure what's going to happen.

Normally money market rates just sit there. But because we're in a rare period where the Fed is moving constantly, the rates bear watching. Nobody has to move tomorrow, but you want to monitor the rates and make sure your cash investment is going up. If your cash investment hasn't moved in the last few months, you're in the wrong place.