Here’s how fixed income investors can survive rising rates

If the Fed raises interest rates in December by a quarter-point, don’t expect to see a major boost for savings accounts and new certificates of deposit.

At the moment, the most generous savings accounts are offering interest rates in the neighborhood of 1 percent, while rates on a one-year CD are about 1.2 percent.

But there may be a place for long-term CDs in your portfolio, especially if they have consumer-friendly withdrawal terms and low penalties.

“A CD with an easy withdrawal penalty gives you a put option — the right to sell it back to the bank — without incurring the loss of a bond,” said Allan S. Roth, founder of Wealth Logic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He’s a proponent of using CDs, particularly those that are as long as five years, to protect against interest rate risk.