By Sabrina Karl

Certificates of deposit can be a great tool for saving toward a short-term goal, like building up a house down payment or stashing money for a big project or dream vacation. But what about retirement? Do CDs have a place in saving for your golden years?

The first question is whether CDs are an allowable retirement investment, and the answer is yes. When you open an Individual Retirement Account, or IRA, that account is simply a container, which can hold most types of investments, from bank deposits like CDs to stocks and bonds.

Opening an IRA CD is hardly different than opening a regular CD. At most banks and credit unions, all the CDs in their regular menu are equally available in an IRA. The difference isn’t usually in the CD itself, but simply in the account where you hold it.

Occasionally, however, an institution will promote a specific IRA CD offer. These are often longer-term certificates, which typically come with a more favorable rate.

But are retirement CDs a good idea? It’s true that CDs are extremely safe and entirely predictable, so they’re well-suited well to savers who have almost no risk tolerance or a strong aversion to investing in stocks and bonds.

But since a CD’s fixed rate of return generally lags these other investments over the long term – and usually significantly – investing your IRA funds in a CD will earn you far less over time. And in order to grow your nest egg sufficiently to fund your retirement years, the more substantial gains earned in the stock market are likely to be necessary.

That said, for savers who are very close to retirement, or who wish to hold a portion of their retirement savings outside the stock market, IRA CDs are indeed safe and reliable.