With the stock market’s fluctuations, many investors are looking for conservative opportunities. If you’re among that group, your first stop should be TreasuryDirect. The federal government operates this site to make investing in the various treasury securities very simple. Those securities include treasury notes, treasury bills, treasury bonds, or TIPS — all of which are backed by the U.S. government. While treasury securities rarely have a high rate of return, they all have a fixed rate of return that is guaranteed.

It is unbelievably easy to invest in treasury securities these days: setting up an account on TreasuryDirect takes only about five minutes. You will have to wait for the government to mail you an ‘access card’ — the card itself is relatively unimportant, but this method allows the government to confirm your mailing address (and your identity).

Once TreasuryDirect has confirmed that you are who you say you are, you can like a bank account — either checking or savings — to your TreasuryDirect account. When you’re ready to invest, you’ll need to purchase a certificate of indebtedness, which is just a fancy way of saying that you’ll transfer money into your TreasuryDirect account. From there, it’s just a matter of purchasing the treasury security of your choice.

You’ll need to invest a minimum of $25 in order to purchase savings bonds and $100 for treasury notes, bills or bonds. TreasuryDirect allows you to place your order and the site will fulfill your request at the next treasury auction. All treasury securities are sold at auctions, but the process is fairly pre-determined. You can get deals occasionally, but they may not be especially large.

After you’ve purchased your securities, you’ll receive returns every six months for the life of the security. For those purchased through TreasuryDirect, your payments are automatically deposited into the account you used to initially purchase your investments. You can purchase securities for virtually any length of time you wish through TreasuryDirect. Your options range from 28 days to 30 years, with a wide variety of choices in between.

There are some definite benefits to investing in treasury securities — among other positives is the fact that you won’t need to pay state or local taxes on the returns — although there are some equally significant drawbacks. Because treasury securities are among the most stable investments available, there is not as significant a return on them as you might wish for. You can get a comparable rate just by leaving your money in a savings account or a CD. The main difference is the fact that while something may happen to a savings account, it’s highly unlikely that anything could happen to an investment in treasury securities.

In the past, investing in treasury securities required quite a bit more effort than it does today. TreasuryDirect has streamlined the process, making it simple enough for any individual investor to handle on his own. It’s just a matter of sitting down at your computer and getting started.