What to do with Cash in Investment Accounts

Having consolidated my investment accounts into E*Trade, I now need to decide what to do with cash in these accounts. For my taxable brokerage account, one option is to transfer the cash into an E*Trade savings accounts that currently pays 5.05%. However, that option is not available for retirement accounts, such as SIMPLE IRA and Roth IRA accounts. I could simply leave the cash in one of the E*Trade sweep accounts, but they only have any APY of up to 0.40% for accounts with a balance of less than $25,000 (E*Trade Uninvested Cash Rates).

Another option is to find a mutual fund for parking cash in the short-term that has low expenses and a low initial investment. To find such mutual funds, I used E*Trade fund screener to search for the following:

• No transaction fee (NTF) funds
• Expense ratios of <= 0.50%
• Minimum initial investment < $250 (for IRAs)

This screen generated the following options for investing cash, short-term. Notice that the last entry is an S&P 500 index, which could be good for long-term investing.

Fund Name	Symbol	Exp Ratio	IRA Min	1/5/10yr Ave Ann Return
American Century CA LG-TERM T/F INV	BCLTX	0.49%	$0	4.25% / 3.96% / 4.83%
American Century CA Tax-Free Bond	BCITX	0.49%	$0	4.99% / 4.72% / 5.44%
American Century Tax-Free Bond Inv	TXTIX	0.49%	$0	4.14% / 3.80% / 4.69%
American Century AZ Municipal BD Inv	BEAMX	0.49%	$0	4.25% / 3.96% / 4.83%
American Century Tax-Free Bond Inv	TWTIX	0.49%	$0	4.20% / 4.06% / 5.00%
AMF Intermediate Mortgage	ASCPX	0.48%	$0	5.89% / 3.21% / 4.99%
AMF U.S. Government Mortgage	ASMTX	0.48%	$0	5.88% / 3.94% / 5.45%
AMF Ultra Short Mortgage	ASARX	0.46%	$0	5.06% / 2.72% / 4.22%
Columbia U.S. Treasury Index Z	IUTIX	0.36%	$0	4.54% / 4.21% / 5.72%
PIA Short Term Govt Secs	PIASX	0.35%	$0	4.74% / 2.61% / 4.38%
SSGA S&P 500 Index	SVSPX	0.18%	$0	11.74% / 6.62% / 7.46%