Hello, I

was wondering if you have any suggestions on how to model a GIC ladder?  For example a 5 year ladder - with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 year rungs - where the maturing terms are reinvested into a new 5 year term - i.e. 1 year matures and is reinvested into a 5 year, 2 year matures and is reinvested into a 5 year, and so on.

I see that in the RATES/YIELDS/CURRENCIES section, I can select to have a specific GIC renew, but I'm assuming it keeps the same term length as it was originally set with - i.e. 1 year renews as 1 year, 2 year renews as a 2 year, and so on. What I'm doing as an alternative is just using a cash account (or 1 year GIC), with a yield set to the average annual interest rate of the GIC ladder. I imagine this gets me close enough, although it doesn't let me accurately model the length of time the GIC's are locked in and not available to be "spent". I thought I would ask you in case you have a clever way to model the ladder?

thanks

When you edit a GIC investment, you can set the term of the GIC to what you want it to renew to (say 5 years), not necessarily what it was originally, so that the “Renew” button in RATES/YIELDS/CURRENCIES will renew the GIC for that length of term, from its current maturity date that you set.

Then you can renew for additional terms.

When renewed in the future the TIME MACHINE will set the new maturity date to the end of the rate, so the funds should be blocked as long as the GIC is renewed. So you don’t have to renew rates forever and to make the funds available eventually, I think it sets the last rate end date of None so that the funds continue to grow at that last rate forever, but then they’ll be no maturity, so not blocked and available for spending. What you are doing is quite reasonable, and will get you very close.