Hey venture capital investors, are you looking to get rich quick on mobile apps? Are you thinking about backing the latest mobile app that teaches you a foreign language while you cook the corresponding cuisine? How about a mobile app that makes mobile apps? Want to throw $1 million behind an app that lets you know where Cool Ranch Doritos wrappers are at all times, even if the wrappers are in trash cans?!
If you’ve got an itching impulse to invest that cool million right away…don’t. Instead, take a minute and buy a cash management bill.
A cash management bill is a short-term security that matures between several days and three months. They're sold by the U.S. Treasury Department to cover short-term cash needs and reserve funding while the government waits for tax revenue to come in.
They’re sold in $1 million increments.
That’s huge for you, fearless VC investor. Because if you own one of these, you’ll have just enough time to rethink the terrible investment that would have been an app designed to tell color blind people what color signs are on the road…but you have to look at your phone to read the color while operating the car. See? There are some bad ideas out there.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What are Treasury Bills?15 Views
finance a la shmoop. what are Treasury bills? well the US government is a
financial pig. it borrows money all the time [pig crosses screen]
snort snort. well somebody's gotta buy vibrating back massagers for all those
senators. tea bills are just one way in which the government raises cash for
itself to you know buy things. the deal works like this.
investors write a check to the US government taking their hard-earned cash
and giving it to Uncle Sam who in return gives them a piece of paper promising to
pay them back in a short ish period of time .while tea bills are like that
they're typically short in duration and they sell at a discount to par like a
zero coupon bond .meaning that an investor might pay nine hundred eighty [zero coupon bonds explained]
two dollars for a thousand dollar par bond which comes due in six months. the
investor for loaning the government her nine hundred eighty two dollars in cash
for six months gets paid eighteen dollars in rent on that money. there are
no interest payments made along the way as there would be in a traditional bond
investment which typically pays interest twice a year. in this case the investor
is just buying a grand at a discount. simple .and note that in this case the
investment return is eighteen bucks on a grand for six months. that implies an
annualized interest rate on the money ie over twelve months of what? mm-hmm we're [equation]
testing you here a little bit just seeing if you're awake. well if an
investor makes eighteen bucks in six months which is half a year if you
doubled the six months to be twelve months or a full year well you could
also double the eighteen bucks to be thirty-six bucks and yeah that's it.
notionally had the government rented that grand for a year it would have paid
thirty-six dollars for the privilege or three point six percent interest
annualized. thirty-six bucks over a grand. that's how we got there but it's not
quite accurate why? because the investor didn't put in a full grand ,they will
have put in less. well in this example they invested nine hundred eighty two
dollars and they got back eighteen bucks for six months of doing a whole lot of [piggy bank called "U.S gov."]
nothing. watching the clock and hoping the US
government wouldn't go bankrupt during that time period. so the interest rate of
return to the investor? well you take 18 bucks and divide it by 982 and you get
about 1.8 3% annualize it and you get a skosh more than 3.6 percent ie something
more like three point six six percent or so .small change but on big numbers that
adds up and now with investor money the government is free to do all its pork
spending. maybe a nice new sty for the Speaker of the House. what do you think? [pig walks on back legs through a store carrying a basket]
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