One of my favorite movies of all time is Trading Places.
Just today, while reading about the effect of the Fed's interest rate cuts on bond holders, the scene with Jamie Lee Curtis as Ophelia ... ahem ... laying out her retirement plan for Dan Aykroyd as Louis popped into my head. Something along the lines of, I have $42,000 in T-Bills, earning interest. I figure I've got two or three more years on my back before I can retire.
And I got to thinking: what if she had put the money specifically in 30-year treasuries and let it ride to maturity? How much would she have made?
The movie was released in June of 1983 but it takes place around the holidays, so let's say the action is set at the end of 1982. Ophelia tells Louis that the money is already in "T-bills, earning interest", so it's been there for a little bit. Let's say, she's had it in there since June 30 of that year. So I look up the rate for that time period on an historical chart website, and it's 14.03% for June 28. Let's round it down to 14% for June 30.
That means she will be receiving a 14% coupon on the original investment, guaranteed by the federal government, every year for 30 years. By the time it matures on June 30, 2012, the value of her $42,000 investment would be:
$218,400.
That's not enough to live on for the rest of her life, of course, but 56-year-old Ophelia would have gotten a nice little chunk of change from her original $42,000 investment, in addition to presumed gains from any additional money she would have made "on her back".
Of course, it's all moot since she apparently sold off the bond (at par, I assume) and handed the proceeds over to Louis and Billy Ray so she could make untold millions from their shorting FCOJ while putting the Dukes into the poorhouse at the same time. So, either way, she was a smart cookie with her money.
God, I love that movie.