Author Topic: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks  (Read 10177 times)

sthubbar

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Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« on: July 17, 2014, 11:13:32 PM »
My business is going to be able to float $1 million dollars for 3 weeks.

With interest rates around 1% that would only earn about $625.

What other creative, 99.9% secure things could be done with that amount of money for such a short time?

shuffler

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2014, 11:21:31 PM »
What other creative, 99.9% secure things could be done with that amount of money for such a short time?

surfhb

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2014, 02:04:34 AM »
Be smart.    Keep it in a regular savings account

lithy

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2014, 04:29:05 AM »
I'd put it in a banana stand.

HappierAtHome

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2014, 05:50:02 AM »
I'd put it in a banana stand.

There's always money in the banana stand...

nereo

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2014, 06:13:02 AM »
My business is going to be able to float $1 million dollars for 3 weeks.

With interest rates around 1% that would only earn about $625.

What other creative, 99.9% secure things could be done with that amount of money for such a short time?
While i've enjoyed the humorous answers, here's the straightforward one: There is no place you can put $1M for that short a time period which will earn you any reasonable return with almost no risk.  Protecting the principle is about the best you can shoot for.

nordlead

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #6 on: July 18, 2014, 06:59:48 AM »
I say you split it among 50 of those high interest checking accounts where you have to execute 20 or so transactions for the higher interest rate.

Just buy 100 of the cheapest thing you can find, and write those off as a business expense.

matchewed

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #7 on: July 18, 2014, 07:40:18 AM »
My business is going to be able to float $1 million dollars for 3 weeks.

With interest rates around 1% that would only earn about $625.

What other creative, 99.9% secure things could be done with that amount of money for such a short time?

Bury it in the ground. Under the mattress. Make a mattress with it. Swimming pool filled with $1 increments.

In short nothing. Return is a function of risk. More risk, more potential return. Return is also a function of time. You're basically asking someone to hold onto your $1 million dollars for you for three weeks and not touch it, but pay you for that privilege of holding it. Not gonna happen.

sthubbar

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #8 on: July 18, 2014, 07:42:23 AM »
I like shuffler's suggestion.  :)

AssetGrinder

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #9 on: July 18, 2014, 09:11:22 AM »
to get anything above 1% u will have to take on some risk. For one million bucks its not worth taking on any risk to try and eek out a return so i would say just keep it in the bank. Some banks give promotional interest rates at the 2% level but its a lot of effort to set up a new account and money transfers sometimes takes a while.

If you were batshit crazy and had to make a bet. You could buy million worth of AAPL shares and write a covered call option in 3 weeks time. You would get the premium for writing the call and then gamble the share price will go up in 3 weeks.

GGNoob

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2014, 10:17:38 AM »
You can put it in my savings account if you'd like. However, you may have less than $1 million by the end of those 3 weeks.

TreeTired

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2014, 10:51:08 AM »
You could buy million worth of AAPL shares and write a covered call option in 3 weeks time. You would get the premium for writing the call and then gamble the share price will go up in 3 weeks.

I would go with approximately 1700 shares of GOOG.   Selling calls is a good idea but will only limit your profit because GOOG just keeps going up recently.   

Bobberth

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #12 on: July 18, 2014, 02:09:40 PM »
Put it all on black

dragoncar

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #13 on: July 18, 2014, 04:56:50 PM »
Put it all on black

Don't be an ass.  Red is the winning color.

randymarsh

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #14 on: July 18, 2014, 05:52:57 PM »
I can totally help you out! I'll PM you my routing & account number.

Doubleh

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #15 on: July 18, 2014, 10:55:45 PM »
As others have said with this sort of timescale the most important thing is to preserve principle and you can't afford to risk losing that 1m (I'm assuming)

If you really feel the need to take some risk, what you could do is gamble the interest. Put 999,500 into a savings account at 1% for three weeks, after which it will be worth 999,500 x 1+(0.01x3/52) 1,000,076. Obviously if the time or interest rate is different from this you need to recalculate the amount you can risk - and check the math yourself. 

This gives you 500 that you can put at risk and still be able to repay that 1mm. Of course 500 sounds much less impressive, but remember you can take a pretty high risk with it as your principle is already secured. For shares I'd use it to buy options in order to get the most potential return. Or buy lottery tickets, gamble on sport, hell put it all on red. Just whatever you do don't leverage eg cfd's, spread bets of anything where you can lose more than your 500, otherwise you're still risking your million (or your own savings) to cover the margin. Point of the exercise is that worst case you should never end up with less than 1mm. Assuming the savings bank doesn't crash but hey that's a different question.

Whenever you see a bank advertising a guaranteed equity bond eg "we'll guarantee to return your money after 5 years, plus 5% of any increase in the s&p500 provided that the moon is rising in Aquarius (or some other bs condition)" this is what they are doing.

kyleaaa

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #16 on: July 20, 2014, 09:05:35 AM »
I'd say taking risks on $1,000,000 just to make an extra $100 over a 3 week period is beyond stupid.

GrayGhost

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #17 on: July 20, 2014, 03:15:36 PM »
Unless you are one of the very few stock pickers on this planet, I wouldn't bother trying to make money on principal without risk in three weeks.

You could, in theory, invest in furthering other businesses of yours, or possibly offering very short term loans to other people in businesses, but these can be extremely risky ventures.

Yeah, I would just stick it into a savings account. If this money is for your business anyway, it's going to work pretty hard for you, just let it take a three week vacation if needed.

arebelspy

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #18 on: August 12, 2014, 06:10:43 PM »
Most likely a loss would be catastrophic, so I agree with those that say don't bother adding risk for a tiny profit.

Put it all on black

Don't be an ass.  Red is the winning color.

I'd suggest a poll, but it could get heated just discussing which choices the poll should have.
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TurtleMarkets

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #19 on: August 13, 2014, 01:24:09 PM »
Sell covered calls.

shotgunwilly

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #20 on: August 13, 2014, 02:05:05 PM »
Put it all on black

Don't be an ass.  Red is the winning color.

Lets be smart about this.  Take the $1million to Vegas, put $10,000 on red.  If you lose, put $20,000 on red. If you lose put $40,000 on red and so on, doubling your bet each time until you finally win. Win you do, you are up $10,000. Pack your $1.01 million up and go home.  Boom, 1% return, or $10,000, for 1 day of work.

Since people like to talk about "chance of success" on here (regarding the SWR in retirement).... There is a 48.65% chance that you hit your color and 51.35% that you do not.  If you double your bet each time you have 6 losses available until you do not have enough to make the next bet increment.  This gives you a 98.17% chance of successfully winning your $10,000.  There is only a 1.83% that you lose 6 colors in a row and go home with only $370,000.


But seriously. Put it in a secure account.

Mother Fussbudget

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #21 on: August 13, 2014, 02:10:05 PM »
3 weeks is too short a timeframe.  Put it in Savings or in the money market account at your brokerage (whichever has better interest rates).

mjs111

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #22 on: August 13, 2014, 02:18:49 PM »
Companies that make use of short term float like this (think of ADP and Paychex when they get paid by the employer but before they pay out to employee) play it smart: it's always in cash or US Treasuries. There's zero chance of principal loss.

Mike


fartface

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #23 on: August 13, 2014, 05:59:48 PM »
Buy 10,638 shares of McDonald's...it's near a 52 week low. I'm buying more.

RWD

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #24 on: August 13, 2014, 08:07:22 PM »
Put it all on black

Don't be an ass.  Red is the winning color.

Lets be smart about this.  Take the $1million to Vegas, put $10,000 on red.  If you lose, put $20,000 on red. If you lose put $40,000 on red and so on, doubling your bet each time until you finally win. Win you do, you are up $10,000. Pack your $1.01 million up and go home.  Boom, 1% return, or $10,000, for 1 day of work.

Since people like to talk about "chance of success" on here (regarding the SWR in retirement).... There is a 48.65% chance that you hit your color and 51.35% that you do not.  If you double your bet each time you have 6 losses available until you do not have enough to make the next bet increment.  This gives you a 98.17% chance of successfully winning your $10,000.  There is only a 1.83% that you lose 6 colors in a row and go home with only $370,000.


But seriously. Put it in a secure account.

I know you are joking, but there are typically table limits which keep this sort of strategy from working... In the case that you did actually find a casino that will let you make such large bets it's still not foolproof. You only have to lose six times in a row before you don't have enough left to double your bet. The odds of this happening is 1.8% (19/37)^6. It's still a losing bet (as expected) even if you could repeat that strategy over and over with a fresh $1 million for eternity.

chesebert

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #25 on: August 14, 2014, 01:17:20 AM »
Do you do this often? Do you have relationship with any private equity/hedge funds/IBD? I am thinking about a repo transaction. I know money market funds do it all the time. Granted 1M is a tiny amount.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2014, 01:21:19 AM by chesebert »

TurtleMarkets

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #26 on: August 14, 2014, 05:53:02 AM »
Buy 10,638 shares of McDonald's...it's near a 52 week low. I'm buying more.

Your trading system is to buy stocks that are at 52 week lows?  I know there are millions of systems out there but that one is crazy to me.

Garnacerous

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #27 on: August 14, 2014, 06:53:31 AM »
You're in luck! I am the son of the late Prince Al-badari Surugaba of Nigeria who has recently died. Before his death my father deposited with the sum of $6,200,000 which he deposited in Nairobi for safe keeping.

I am here in seeking for an avenue to transfer the fund to you in only you're reliable and trustworthy person to hold the fund. I am here in Nigeria because of the death of my parent's and I want you to help me transfer the fund into your bank account for investment purpose.

Please, I will offer you 20% of the total sum of the USD 6.2M for your assistance. Please I wish to transfer the fund urgently without delay into your account and wish to relocate to your country due to poor condition in Nigeria, as to enable me to  continue my education as i was a medical student before the sudden death of my parent's.

Remain blessed

Mr Mark

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #28 on: August 14, 2014, 10:25:24 AM »
In some countries,  UK? NZ? I think -  there are gov. Savings bonds that pay interest based on a lottery system, like buying a powerball ticket. The equity is gov. guaranteed.  And with 1 million 'tickets' you could hit it big. Or even a few smaller prizes.

don't know if there's a US equivalent.

dragoncar

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #29 on: August 14, 2014, 12:23:18 PM »
In some countries,  UK? NZ? I think -  there are gov. Savings bonds that pay interest based on a lottery system, like buying a powerball ticket. The equity is gov. guaranteed.  And with 1 million 'tickets' you could hit it big. Or even a few smaller prizes.

don't know if there's a US equivalent.

Just wow

Mr Mark

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Re: Where to put $1 million for 3 weeks
« Reply #30 on: August 14, 2014, 09:15:20 PM »
http://www.nsandi.com/savings-premium-bonds

uk version maximum is about $65k, and pays an average rate of 1.35%. With 2 x 1 million dollar prizes per month!

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!