Cash update

Back in April i provided a summary of my approach to managing cash balances. I view this very much as a continual work in progress and i'm always making small changes as competitive savings rates come and go.

I've made a number of changes in the past couple of weeks, largely in response to a couple of accounts maturing and some other rates being reduced.  In summary, these have been to move cash from maturing accounts into new longer tenor fixed term accounts, increasing the average maturity profile of my cash balances.

These can be summarised below:

April 2013:

	On demand	<3mths	<1yr	<2yrs	>2yrs		Total
% of cash	49%	19%	3%	23%	6%		100%
% of assets	18%	7%	1%	8%	2%		36%

July 2013:

	On demand	<3mths	<1yr	<2yrs	>2yrs		Total
% of cash	46%	3%	7%	36%	8%		100%
% of assets	16%	1%	2%	13%	3%		35%

The net result is an increase in yield from around 2% to 2.3%, with minimal impact on the amount of cash instantly accessible. I've also given more certainty to the yield, locking in fixed rates on the assumption that the Fed, BoE and ECB are unlikely to raise interest rates for another year or so. Whilst this does introduce some opportunity cost or re-investment risk, i'm prepared to take this on to obtain a higher yield in the short term.