Peter Crane Quotations

You really need to know what federal income tax bracket you're in to determine whether tax-free funds offer more of a benefit. As a rule of thumb, anyone who falls in the 36 or 39 percent tax bracket should consider tax-free funds.

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.

They're getting into a range where, with no risk, their returns are competitive with long-term returns of bonds and equities that are higher, but are much more volatile.

The main attraction of money-market funds is their liquidity and their constant share value. But if they have an investment that goes south on them, there's a chance that they could be valued at 99 cents per share, 98 cents per share.

Is the retail investor better off in a money market or an insured account? The jury is still out.

The mercury can fall below zero, heavy snowstorms can assail the summit, and high winds can hammer the peak. In fact, the highest wind ever recorded on earth, a remarkable 231 miles per hour, was measured on Mount Washington on April 12, 1934.

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

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.

When it comes to liquidity needs, convenience is the most important factor.

Why shouldn't America, and American children, have the same level of protection that kids do in France and Germany and Poland and Russia and Armenia and Ireland and Norway and a host of other countries?