Which investment trusts could benefit from lower interest rates?

As vehicles for long-term investments, many investment trusts were hit when interest rates rose in 2022. With interest rates expected to fall by the end of the year, could now be the time to invest in one of these unloved sectors?

(Image credit: Craig Hastings via Getty Images)

By Dan McEvoy

Investment trust investors will have seen their discounts widen over recent years, and this is largely due to the rapid increase in interest rates that began in 2022.

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) holds its next interest rates meeting this Thursday, and most analysts are forecasting that it will cut rates. The main debate is over the size of the cut, with consensus settling around a 25 basis point (bps) cut but some analysts thinking the MPC will go further and cut rates by fifty bps.

Even if the MPC holds rates steady at this meeting, the trajectory at present is downwards. While an inflationary shock could change the picture, it’s expected that interest rates will be lower at the end of the year than they are right now – perhaps as low as 3.25%.

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Rising interest rates hit some sectors, such as property or renewable energy infrastructure, particularly hard. But now, with rates starting to fall, “many analysts believe their prospects are looking brighter and there has been a surge of M&A activity in these sectors,” says Annabel Brodie-Smith, communications director at the Association of Investment Companies (AIC).

The AIC, which represents around 300 of the UK’s investment trusts, has polled analysts and investment trust experts about the sectors that they believe could benefit from an environment of falling interest rates. Here, MoneyWeek dives into their findings to highlight the sectors and trusts that could be set to gain if interest rates fall.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure investments could benefit in a lower-rate environment. Infrastructure projects tend to be very long-term investments, and as such investment trusts make a particularly effective means of gaining exposure.

When valuing an infrastructure investment, most professional investors use a formula called net present value to calculate how much a given project is worth today. One of the key inputs in this formula is the interest rate: the higher this is, the greater the present value of a long-term project is discounted (because higher interest rates mean that safer assets like bonds offer higher returns over time).

So falling interest rates serve to increase the present value of long-term infrastructure assets by reducing the discounting effect of interest rates.

“This discount rate effect would be more meaningful for longer life, lower risk ‘core’ economic infrastructure assets such as water, energy, transport and accommodation investments,” says Ashley Thomas, analyst at Winterflood Securities.

Thomas recommends HICL Infrastructure (LON:HICL) which invests predominantly in these areas and has 65% of its portfolio invested in the UK.

Alternatively, Thomas highlights BBGI Global Infrastructure (LON:BBGI) which invests in similar sectors but with a more global outlook, as only 33% of assets are UK-based.

Markuz Jaffe, analyst at Peel Hunt, and Colette Ord, head of real estate, infrastructure and renewable funds research at Deutsche Numis, both highlight International Public Partnerships (LON:INPP).

Ord argues that the 22% discount it currently trades at doesn’t reflect its portfolio’s return potential, and points out that “the current dividend yield of 7.7% is fully covered by earnings, and even if no further investments are made, the company could pay a growing dividend for at least a further 20 years”.

“The portfolio is around 73% weighted to the UK and some of the investments benefit from government-backed cash flows, so there is a beneficial link to reductions in gilt yields, and any impact this might have on underlying asset pricing,” adds Jaffe.

Renewable energy

Energy is of course a sub-set of the broader infrastructure sector, but renewable energy investments in particular suffered when interest rates started rising in 2022, and as such could be big beneficiaries as interest rates fall.

Bluefield Solar Income Fund (LON:BSIF) is another of Winterflood’s picks highlighted by Thomas as a renewable energy infrastructure pure play. 100% of its investments are UK-based.

One of the most popular renewable energy investment trusts is Greencoat UK Wind (LON:UKW), which “offers a pure play on the UK wind sector… and has built a strong track record of cash generation”, according to Jaffe.

Jaffe highlights that UKW’s board recently committed an extra £100 million to its share buyback program to take the total to £200 million, “one of the largest in the listed infrastructure investment company universe”. He also highlights the trust’s 22% discount to its end-of-March NAV, and 8.8% yield.

For an even deeper discount and greater yield, consider Foresight Solar Fund (LON:FSFL). This is currently trading at a 30% discount to NAV and offering a 10% yield.

The trust “offers exposure to a portfolio of solar assets located across the UK, Spain and Australia, with a development pipeline of Spanish battery energy storage system (BESS) and more solar projects,” says Rachel May, research analyst at Shore Capital.

“The board has been extremely proactive in its attempts to narrow the discount having recently announced that a further 75MW of projects have been identified for disposal,” May adds, highlighting the ongoing sales process for tis Australian portfolio and the sale of a 50% stake in its Spanish holdings at a 21% premium to book value.

Property

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are a mainstay among investment trust and property investors. Low interest rates are generally good news for the property market: they reduce mortgage rates, thereby increasing demand for property and pushing up property prices.

It is worth bearing in mind too that a distinctive feature of investment trusts is that they can borrow money to leverage their investments, a practice called “gearing”. This debt is also subject to interest rate changes, and investment trusts with variable-rate debt can stand to benefit when interest rates fall.

“A cut in e Bank of England base rate correspond with a reduction in the sterling overnight index average rate, or SONIA, reducing debt costs for funds with unhedged floating rate debt using SONIA as a reference rate,” explains Emma Bird, head of investment trusts research at Winterflood Securities.

As such, Bird recommends Custodian Property Income REIT (LON:CREI). 18% of its debt is subject to a variable, SONIA-linked rate, so the trust “should therefore see reduced debt costs and subsequently higher earnings as SONIA falls”.

Growth assets

Companies that are positioned for long-term growth are also hit by higher interest rates, for similar reasons to companies in the sectors above: namely, their returns are likely to take a long time to come around, and as such higher rates decrease their attractiveness relative to safer investments like gilts.

Growth assets could take the form of early-stage companies, which are likely to be private. For exposure to these, Jaffe recommends HarbourVest Global Private Equity (LON:HVPE) which uses a fund-of-funds structure to offer exposure to global private companies.

HVPE’s discount increased from 15% in early 2022 to over 50% by October the same year. It is currently around 43%, but Jaffe says that the trust is taking steps to address this.

“The distribution pool, which supports buyback activity, has seen its allocation doubled from 15% to 30%, the investment structure is to be simplified via a dedicated separately managed account with HarbourVest Partners, and a continuation vote is being introduced for the 2026 AGM,” he says.

There are also nascent industries that could take many years to recuperate significant sunk costs, but for some of them, not even the sky will be the limit from there.

Ord picks out Seraphim Space Investment Trust (LON:SSIT) and its portfolio of space technology companies.

Lower interest rates could well improve sentiment around its capital-intensive portfolio of companies, but “perhaps more significant than the change in interest rates is a focus on defence spending,” she says.

This 10-stock ISA portfolio could yield £1,380 in passive income a year

Here’s a portfolio of dividend shares that could produce £115 of monthly passive income for investors who maximise their ISA contribution limit.

Posted by

Charlie Carman

PHP

When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you put in.

You’re reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool’s Premium Investing Services.

Diversification is a crucial consideration for passive income investors.. Since companies can cut or halt dividend payments at any moment, it’s important not to have all your eggs in one basket.

There’s no magic rule about the minimum number of dividend stocks required for a diversified portfolio. However, 10 shares or more is a good starting point. At this level of variety, there’s reduced exposure to the specific risks associated with any single company.

With that in mind, here’s a sample Stocks and Shares ISA portfolio investors could consider building to aim for £1,380 in annual passive income.

High-yield dividend shares

To reach this dividend income goal from a £20k ISA, investors would need a 6.9% yield across their holdings. Given that the FTSE 100 average is only 3.6%, buying high-yield stocks will be required. A simple index tracker would fall well short.

To illustrate the kinds of stocks I’m talking about, investing £2,000 in each of the UK companies listed below would hit the passive income target. I’ve selected this sample portfolio from FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 shares. In the spirit of diversification, it covers different areas of the market, from banking to pharmaceuticals, media to water, and beyond.

Stock	Dividend yield
Aviva	6.63%
BP	6.51%
British American Tobacco	7.52%
GSK	4.48%
HSBC	6.17%
ITV	6.35%
Johnson Matthey	6.35%
Legal & General	8.55%
Primary Health Properties	6.95%
Sainsbury’s	5.18%
Severn Trent	4.30%

I reckon it’s a credible mix of quality dividend stocks, giving prospective investors plenty to chew over. Furthermore, I didn’t blindly pick the highest yields I could find, which is a common mistake for novice stock pickers.

Buying shares based on their yields alone overlooks other essential qualities, such as dividend cover, distribution histories, and the fundamental health of the business behind the headline yield figure.

That’s not to say these firms pay sure-fire dividends. There’s no such thing. But it’s a nice snapshot of top UK dividend shares to consider buying, and I hold some myself.

A lesser-known FTSE 250 stock

One of my choices that may be less familiar to readers is Primary Health Properties (LSE:PHP). With 29 consecutive years of dividend increases to its name and a yield just shy of 7%, this real estate investment trust (REIT) should capture the attention of passive income investors.

Please note that tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future. The content in this article is provided for information purposes only. It is not intended to be, neither does it constitute, any form of tax advice.

The company’s portfolio is concentrated in long-term leasehold and freehold interests in modern primary healthcare facilities. A recent £22.6bn funding increase for NHS England is a big tailwind for the REIT, considering 89% of its rent roll comes from government bodies. Coupled with anticipated interest rate cuts, macro conditions look encouraging for share price growth.

I also like the steady upward trajectory of Primary Health Properties’ financial results. Net rental income and adjusted earnings per share have improved year on year for at least five years. Growth opportunities in Ireland are another attractive point. The Emerald Isle is the company’s “preferred area of investment” today.

Admittedly, the balance sheet could be in better shape. Net debt of £1.32bn looks uncomfortably high measured against a market cap of £1.35bn. This raises questions over the dividend’s sustainability. Nonetheless, on balance, I think favourable market fundamentals mean the future looks bright for this income stock.

PHP currently up 18% from its recent low, so a lot of people sitting on a decent profit, so that could mean profiting taking may hit the share if there is bad market news.

Two shares that pay a ‘secure’ dividend but the yield is too low for inclusion in the Snowball.

But possible to have traded the two Trusts to provide a profit for re-investment, with the fall back of the dividend, if your timing was wrong.

If we use UKW as the working example, they go xd next week

The fcast dividend is 2.6p, if you buy before the xd date, you will earn 5 dividends in just over a year.

Current price 117p Fcast Dividend 2.6p

5 Dividends earned 13p – a yield of roughly 11%

If the share price has increased, you take your profit and try to do it with another Trust.

If not you could keep taking the dividends, which will be re-invested to earn more dividends to be re-invested.

All baby steps. The above is not a recommendation to buy but obviously the main criteria of the Trust you choose, apart from the yield, is the dividend ‘secure’ although no dividend is 100% secure.

Thursday 8 May

AEW UK REIT PLC ex-dividend date
Aquila Energy Efficiency Trust PLC special ex-dividend date
Artemis UK Future Leaders PLC ex-dividend date
Chenavari Toro Income Fund Ltd ex-dividend date
CVC Income & Growth Ltd EUR ex-dividend date
CVC Income & Growth Ltd GBP ex-dividend date
Fidelity Special Values PLC ex-dividend date
GCP Infrastructure Investments Ltd ex-dividend date
Marwyn Value Investors Ltd ex-dividend date
Partners Group Private Equity Ltd ex-dividend date
Petershill Partners PLC ex-dividend date

Community Healthcare Trust Incorporated (NYSE: CHCT) is a U.S.-based real estate investment trust (REIT) specializing in owning and managing income-producing healthcare properties, primarily outpatient facilities, across the United States. As of December 31, 2024, the company had invested approximately $1.2 billion in 200 properties spanning 36 states, totaling about 4.4 million square feet. Yahoo Finance+2StockAnalysis

📊 Stock Overview

Community Healthcare Trust Inc (CHCT)

$17.01

Year Low14.76

Year High27.62

As of May 3, 2025, CHCT’s stock price stands at $17.01, reflecting a 0.89% increase from the previous close. The stock’s 52-week range is between $14.76 and $27.62.

📈 Financial Highlights

• Market Capitalization: Approximately $454.8 million
• Revenue (TTM): $116.53 million
• Net Income (TTM): -$8.16 million
• Earnings Per Share (EPS): -$0.31
• Debt-to-Equity Ratio: 107.5%
• Gross Margin: 80.14%
• Net Profit Margin: -7.00%
• Price-to-Earnings (P/E) Ratio: -55.7x
• Price-to-Sales (P/S) Ratio: 3.9x
• Beta: 0.63 Simply Wall St

💰 Dividends

CHCT offers a dividend yield of 11.1% with a payout ratio of 105%. The next ex-dividend date is May 9, 2025, and the dividend is payable on May 23, 2025.

🔍 Analyst Insights

Analysts have a “Buy” consensus rating for CHCT, with a 12-month price target of $21.25, indicating a potential upside of approximately 24.9%. StockAnalysis

For more detailed information, you can visit the company’s official website: .

The above is not a recommendation to buy.

As of May 2025, here are ten of the highest-yielding U.S.-listed Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), offering dividend yields ranging from approximately 11% to over 20%. These REITs span various sectors, including mortgage-backed securities, healthcare, and specialty real estate.

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Top 10 High-Yielding American REITs (May 2025)

1. Orchid Island Capital (ORC)
   Dividend Yield: 20.2%
   A mortgage REIT specializing in residential mortgage-backed securities.
2. ARMOUR Residential REIT (ARR)
   Dividend Yield: 15.3%
   Focuses on residential mortgage-backed securities.
3. Ellington Credit Co. (EARN)
   Dividend Yield: Approximately 14%
   Invests in mortgage-backed securities and related assets.
4. AGNC Investment Corp. (AGNC)
   Dividend Yield: 14.3%
   A prominent mortgage REIT with a focus on agency-backed securities.
5. Arbor Realty Trust (ABR)
   Dividend Yield: 12.5%
   Engages in real estate finance, including bridge and mezzanine loans.
6. Chimera Investment Corp. (CIM)
   Dividend Yield: 12.0%
   Invests in a diversified portfolio of mortgage assets.
7. New York Mortgage Trust (NYMT)
   Dividend Yield: 13.0%
   Focuses on residential mortgage loans and related investments.
8. Dynex Capital (DX)
   Dividend Yield: Approximately 12%
   Invests in mortgage-backed securities and loans.
9. Pennymac Mortgage Investment Trust (PMT)
   Dividend Yield: Approximately 11%
   Specializes in residential mortgage loans and related assets.
10. Community Healthcare Trust (CHCT)
    Dividend Yield: 11.0%
    Owns income-producing real estate properties in the healthcare sector.

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These REITs offer attractive yields but come with varying risk profiles, particularly those heavily invested in mortgage-backed securities. It’s essential to conduct thorough due diligence and consider factors like dividend sustainability, interest rate sensitivity, and sector-specific risks before investing.

CHAT GPT

These 7 European And Asian Stocks Are Crushing It And Still Cheap

American exceptionalism in stocks has come to an abrupt end. Here’s where global fund managers are seeing the most opportunities.

 Forbes Staff. Hank Tucker is a Forbes staff writer covering finance and investing.

Portfolio managers investing in non-U.S. stocks have been trying to get investors’ attention for years, pointing out that valuation multiples overseas have grown much cheaper than stocks in the U.S. since the Financial Crisis, and this year their patience has finally been rewarded.

The MSCI EAFE index, covering stocks in 21 developed markets excluding the U.S. and Canada, is up 7% this year, significantly outperforming the 7% decline for the S&P 500 index in the U.S. It represents a small dent in the decades-long disparity between the two—JPMorgan reports that from the second half of 2008 through the end of 2024, the S&P 500’s annualized total return was 11.9%, versus 3.6% for the MSCI EAFE. That amounts to a seven-fold return on investment for the former, while the international portfolio hasn’t even doubled.

Some of that dominance is because U.S. stocks have produced much stronger earnings growth, but some is also because the S&P 500’s average P/E multiple has swelled to 21.7x, while EAFE is only at 14.0x after starting in a similar position, according to the JPMorgan report. With fears swirling that tariffs and broader uncertainty will compress earnings in the U.S., international investors are hoping that gap can narrow even more.

Asset management giants like Vanguard, BlackRock and Franklin Templeton offer dozens of low-cost international funds to choose from. Active managers that are outperforming the indexers are primarily doing so by zeroing in on European defense stocks and domestically-focused companies that are perceived to be insulated from the effects of Trump’s tariffs in nations like Japan and China.

“We’re at the lowest relative weight of the U.S. in quite some time,” says Travis Prentice, chief investment officer of the Informed Momentum Company, which manages $2.5 billion in momentum-based strategies. “In aerospace and defense, particularly in Europe, momentum not only persisted, but accelerated through all this tariff turmoil.”

Graeme Forster, a portfolio manager at Orbis overseeing $4.5 billion in its International equity strategy, agrees, singling out airplane engine maker Rolls-Royce, London-based BAE Systems, Europe’s largest defense contractor, and German defense firm Rheinmetall as good bets. Orbis’ international strategy has returned 10.8% annually since inception at the end of 2008, beating its index by four percentage points, and produced a 10% return net of fees in the first quarter this year.

Rolls-Royce and BAE Systems are each up more than 30% this year already. Rheinmetall has soared 150% thanks largely to the German parliament’s commitment in March to create a fund to spend more than $500 million on defense and infrastructure over 12 years, a stark departure from the nation’s longstanding frugal spending policies.

Trump has been critical of NATO on several occasions, attacking European nations for not paying enough to support the alliance, and paused U.S. military aid to Ukraine in March. That prompted the European Commission to unveil a “Readiness 2030” plan in March enabling $900 million in spending to defend Ukraine and protect themselves from Russia’s aggression. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, cautioned that “the security architecture that we relied on can no longer be taken for granted” and urged nations to “buy more European.” That’s contributed to U.S. defense firm Lockheed Martin, which makes F-35 fighter jets, sinking 15% since Trump’s election, while BAE Systems, which also produces fighter jets, has soared.

“Sometimes there’s news and sometimes there’s noise, and we’ve always had to figure out how to sift through it, but 2025 has been a particularly newsy year,” says Alaina Anderson, portfolio manager for William Blair’s $1.1 billion International Leaders Fund, which recently added positions in BAE Systems and French cybersecurity and defense firm Thales. “It’s been news that speaks to a change in the structure of markets, the nature of relationships between countries and the durability of long-established institutions.”

Anderson’s fund is also adding positions in China despite its status as the chief target of Trump’s trade war, focusing on stocks like Trip.com, the country’s largest online travel company with more than 50% market share within China. “We think there’s low geopolitical risk in that name, given that it’s really domestic-driven consumption,” says Anderson, with the stock up 50% since last August.

Despite Trump’s pressure in ratcheting up tariffs on China to as much as 145%, the Shanghai Composite index has lost a mere 1.6% in 2025. Prentice references Beijing-based electronics firm Xiaomi as one stock with momentum after tripling in the past year. It sells everything from smartphones to electric vehicles and could be poised to benefit if America’s largest tech companies face harsher tariffs on imports into China.

Orbis’ Forster is more enthralled by opportunities in neighboring Japan, where the Nikkei 225 has roughly mirrored the S&P 500’s losses so far this year. The yen has weakened substantially in the last five years, helping Japanese companies hire skilled workers cheaply in U.S. dollar terms, and Forster thinks the prospect of higher interest rates, which the Bank of Japan raised in January to their highest level in 17 years, could counterintuitively stimulate growth.

“Everyone is a massive saver there. Everyone’s paid off their mortgages and they’ve got a ton of money, and it just sits in bank accounts earning zero,” says Forster. From 2016 until last year, Japan had negative interest rates in place, but with inflation finally returning, the rate hikes could make the yen stronger, ease import costs and improve margins for retailers and domestic businesses.

Forster likes real estate firm Mitsubishi Estate’s stock, with a valuable portfolio of real estate which trades at about half of its fair value, Orbis estimates. The developer owns most of the property surrounding Tokyo’s famed Imperial Palace—its stock performance has been middling for decades, but it’s rallied 25% so far this year, with rents rising meaningfully for the first time since Japan’s 1989 market crash.

“The nice thing about a real estate business is as they push up rent, it’s not a wage-heavy business, so they’re not getting squeezed on the cost side,” says Forster. “That could be very sustainable, because real estate is quite cheap in Japan, and you’re getting it at half price.”

Dorothy ….. realised early on into her retirement that she and her husband, Alan, did not have enough income to live the sort of life they had anticipated. Despite having a workplace pension and the state pension, the 75-year-old was concerned that the standard of life they were used to would not be achievable with the amount coming in. She said: “In my fifties, I was the sole income earner for our family of four, with a mortgage and two teenagers to put through university. I’d had a chequered work history and thought my tiny pension pots might add up to a pension large enough to enable me to retire. I’d set up an appointment with a pension adviser and after he reviewed the information, he shook his head and informed me that they didn’t add up to much. Definitely not what we wanted. He said that I needed to keep working and I’d be able to retire at 85.”

Dividends can be more reliable than share prices as they’re driven by the companies performance itself and not by the whim of investors.

As part of a total return / reinvestment strategy, this income could be reinvested into income assets or back into the equity market depending on the relative valuations.

The emotional benefits of dividend re-investment.
In fact, with this investment strategy you can actually welcome falling share prices.

When cash is king.

Forbes.com

How To Boost Your Cash Yield At Fidelity, Vanguard, Chase And Schwab

By William Baldwin, Senior Contributor

Inflation and high interest rates aren’t going away. Don’t let your checking account rob you of a decent return on liquid assets.

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Forget bank CD rates for a moment. If you want more interest, look at something under your nose: the bank account you use to collect a paycheck and pay bills.

Chances are you are earning something in the neighborhood of zilch on your liquid assets. You can fix this. You can get 4%.

Below are four remedies to pick from, one of them, interestingly, coming from a bank that participates in the usual checking robbery. Alongside those recommendations you will see tips on protecting your money from thieves.

The problem: You need a pile of cash to cover checks and other debits, a pile big enough to eliminate the risk of a bounced payment. If your bounce-proof sum averages $15,000, $600 a year in potential interest is leaking out of your pocket. With a bit of effort you can capture this interest.

Each of the four solutions has two parts. You set up a transaction account that has a fairly low balance and attach to it an investment account that has a large sum. The large pot goes into either a money market mutual fund or an exchange-traded fund that acts like a money market.

The transaction account does most of the things you expect from a bank. It takes in electronic payments of paychecks, Social Security benefits and the like; it makes electronic disbursements for utility bills, full payment of credit card balances and the like; it can be used to send money electronically to a tax collector or another financial account.

The investment account holds most of your short-term assets. It could also hold all of your other stocks and bonds.

We’re talking about taxable accounts here. Retirement accounts are a different ball of wax. Also, the discussion is aimed at people who pay off credit card balances in full. If you carry a card balance, seek advice elsewhere.

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Solution #1: Fidelity Investments

Open two accounts, a brokerage account and what Fidelity calls a Cash Management Account. The CMA does all the everyday debits and credits and pays close to 4% interest on the Government Money Market available there. Take a pass on Fidelity’s FDIC-insured account, which has a crummy yield. (See “FDIC—Who Needs It?”)

The brokerage account has lots of investment options, including a Treasury-only money market fund. Aim to maintain a fairly small balance in the CMA and a large sum in the brokerage account.

Your two Fidelity accounts can be hot-linked with a “self-funded overdraft protection,” whereby the CMA automatically draws on the brokerage account’s money fund to keep its balance from dropping below $0 (or, if you prefer, a target balance amount). Order checks for the brokerage money market so that you have the option of paying big bills, such as for estimated taxes, via the mail, earning a few extra days’ interest.

While you’re at it, get a Fidelity Visa card, which rebates 2%.

Advantages: Fidelity’s 216 walk-in branches and its excellent platform for trading stocks, Treasury bonds and exchange-traded funds.

Disadvantage: no cashier’s checks.

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What About The Thieves?

Fidelity, Chase and Schwab will be happy to attach a debit card to your transaction account. Chase has its own automatic teller network; Fidelity and Schwab will reimburse you for ATM fees. My advice is to decline the card. Vanguard doesn’t have a debit card but offers links to Venmo and PayPal. Avoid such links.

Financial technology provides wondrous convenience to you. It’s also convenient for pickpockets and North Korean hackers.

Protect your life savings from the thieves. In addition to the main financial relationship with one of the four institutions described above, open an account somewhere else, call it Acme Bank & Trust, for walking around money. At Acme, get a debit card to use at ATMs. Use Acme to fund your Venmo, PayPal, GooglePay and ApplePay accounts.

Feed Acme via wire transfers from your brokerage. Someone hacking into Acme won’t have access to the brokerage account.

Further safety steps: Opt for two-factor authorization on financial accounts and email accounts; never use your phone to look at your brokerage account; don’t let your browser save the password for a financial account; access the brokerage account only from home or a very secure Wifi.

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Solution #2: Vanguard

Open what Vanguard calls a Cash Plus account. Cash Plus handles the everyday electronic transactions and pays 3.65% on an FDIC-insured balance. Keep a small amount in the FDIC account and a large sum invested in the Vanguard Treasury Money Market. Shares of that fund are one of the few securities permitted in Cash Plus, so a brokerage account is not necessary, but it’s a good idea to build in some flexibility, so open a brokerage account as well.

You can transfer between the two accounts but there’s no hot link, so you have to keep an eye on the balances. After a year is up you are eligible for check writing. Order checks for the money fund and use them for big-ticket items like college tuition and estimated taxes.

Vanguard runs leaner than Fidelity. With lower expense ratios on its money funds, its yields are better, but when you call for help you’ll spend more time on hold.

Advantage: Good interest rates, except on the Cash Plus balance.

Disadvantages: no branches, no cashier’s checks, mediocre customer service.

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Solution #3: J.P. Morgan Chase

Open a checking account. Then open a self-directed, zero-commission brokerage account. Transfer into the brokerage at least $250,000 of assets, which can be stocks you bought long ago (you don’t have to sell anything). This will qualify you for a $700 new-customer bonus and protect you from nuisance fees on the checking account.

In the brokerage account keep a large sum invested in a Treasury bill exchange-traded fund. Keep as little as possible in the checking account, which pays 0.01% interest.

Use the checking account for the usual direct deposits, automatic debits, paper checks and access to the Zelle bill-paying network. When the checking balance runs low, sell some of the ETF. On the next business day, transfer the proceeds into checking.

You can eliminate the one-day lag by stashing money in a liquid savings account ($50,000 minimum to open), but this pays only 3.6%, is subject to state tax and doesn’t absolve you of the obligation to move money from the brokerage account to the checking account.

The loss of interest on the transaction account makes this an expensive solution. But you get a huge network of branches and ATMs, access to cashier’s checks (needed to buy a car or house) and a banking relationship that may be useful if you want a mortgage or business loan.

You might find similar offers at other nationwide banks.

Advantage: traditional banking with face-to-face service.

Disadvantage: less interest income.

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Solution #4: Charles Schwab

Schwab, a forerunner in discount brokerage, has a bank subsidiary that can do what banks usually do. As at Chase, you open both a brokerage account and a checking account. As at Chase, the yield on the checking account is negligible (0.05%). The main difference is that Schwab has an attractive Treasury money-market mutual fund.

Schwab offers bounce protection: In case of an overdraft, the checking account can draw on a margin loan from the brokerage account. But it’s up to you to clear the (expensive) margin loan by selling money fund shares.

A Treasury mutual fund will be better for you than a T-bill ETF if you are going to be making frequent transfers between the brokerage account and the checking account. The ETF has a transaction cost in the form of a bid/ask spread, while the mutual fund has no transaction cost. The mutual fund option does not, however, spare you the one-day wait between cashing out and getting access to the proceeds.

Advantages: banking services, including cashier’s checks, and branches in 45 states.

Disadvantage: less interest income than at Fidelity or Vanguard.

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FDIC—Who Needs It?

A popular choice for people using a broker for their banking is an account covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It’s a bad choice, for two reasons. The yield is likely to be low and the interest is subject to state income tax.

Better: Keep a minimal sum in the transaction account, the one that takes direct deposit of your paycheck and handles automated payments of utility and credit card bills. Store most of your liquid assets in a U.S. Treasury fund. When the transaction account runs low, fuel it from the Treasury fund. When it’s flush, send money the other way.

A fund invested in short-term U.S. Treasury paper has no more credit risk than a bank account backed by the FDIC. The only reason the FDIC is safe is that it is in turn backed by that same U.S. Treasury.

For the Treasury fund, you can use a Treasury-only money-market at Vanguard, Fidelity or Schwab (see table for yields). If your broker isn’t one of those, use an exchange-traded fund that owns the same kind of Treasury bills and notes. Two good ETF choices: SPDR Bloomberg 1-3 Month T-Bill (ticker: BIL), and Vanguard 0-3 Month Treasury Bill (VBIL).

The price of the SPDR product climbs a penny a day (rounding here); after a month it disgorges a 30-cent dividend and the price collapses by 30 cents. With the ETF, but not with a money-market fund, you’ll suffer a transaction cost in the form of a bid/ask spread on the fund shares. For the two I cited it comes to $1.10 – $1.30 per $10,000 round trip. Also with the ETF: You don’t get your hands on the cash until the day following a sale of ETF shares. In some cases, such as when you use a check to draw on a money-market fund, the money market fund doesn’t entail a one-day wait.

The objective with any Treasury fund is to keep your state tax collector’s mitts off the interest. If you live in no-income-tax Texas or Florida, this is irrelevant. If you live in a high-tax state, it matters. State tax can shave 20 to 50 basis points (0.2 to 0.5 percentage point) off the return on a money-market fund.

Watch out. There are funds with “Treasury” in the name that invest in repurchase agreements, which are not eligible for exemption from state tax. Three states have an additional hurdle, relating to asset percentages