Good morning.

Not everyone has jumped onto the juggernaut of speculative trading. Lots of folks still want to keep their money safe.

How do I know that? As far as I can recall, nothing I've ever written in my 13 years at The Wall Street Journal has drawn such an outpouring of emails as my May 28th column on I bonds, "The Safe, High-Return Trade Hiding in Plain Sight."

Hundreds of people got in touch to ask for more details about how to buy the U.S. saving bonds that protect against inflation and, through October, are offering a 3.54% annualized return. That's roughly 170 times what most bank accounts offer, it has the full backing of the U.S. government, and it's exempt from state and local income tax.

To answer the most common questions that came up:

Were you kidding when you said I can make 170X on I bonds?

I was being playful. The column described "raising your return 177-fold in a single trade." I didn't mean that you could instantaneously turn a $10,000 investment into nearly $1,800,000. I meant that you could turn a 0.02% bank-account yield into a 3.54% yield. The increase applies to your rate of return, not your total capital invested.

How do I buy I bonds?

You can't get them through a broker or trading app, nor can your financial adviser buy them on your behalf. You have to open an account at TreasuryDirect.gov. The TreasuryDirect website is clunky and antiquated, but I was still able to open an account in under 10 minutes. The minimum purchase is $25; the maximum is $10,000 per year. (You can also choose to take up to $5,000 of your federal tax refund in the form of I bonds.)

Is the rate fixed for 30 years?

No. Although you can hold an I bond for up to 30 years and sell without any penalty after five years, the rates are semiannual and change to track the official measure of inflation. As inflation rises (or falls), the I bond rate will ratchet to keep pace. I bonds also include a fixed rate -- currently zero, but as high as 3.6% in the past. If interest rates rise, the fixed rate would rise above zero on newly issued I bonds.

Why has my financial adviser never mentioned I bonds?

Partly because advisers can't buy them for you, partly because advisers don't earn fees on them. A Twitter poll by adviser Michael Kitces found that 70% of them "rarely/never" use I bonds. Many advisers emailed or tweeted that I was being unfair when I wrote: "If four family members each put $10,000 into I bonds, that’s $40,000 on which a financial adviser can’t assess a management fee. At a typical 1% charge, that’s $400 a year the adviser won’t earn." Several advisers sputtered that for their clients, who tend to be wealthy, $10,000 a year just isn't worth bothering with. Yet, when I asked whether they still recommend traditional or Roth IRAs or 529 college-savings plans -- which also have low annual maximums but often enable advisers to earn fees -- they almost all fell silent.

What's the catch?

You can't sell I bonds at all for one year after you buy, and you'll forfeit three months' interest if you sell within the first five years. But if you invest regularly over time, that -- and the $10,000 annual maximum investment -- shouldn't tie your hands. Uncle Sam is offering an amazingly good deal. I think you should take it. (I did!)

I was off last week. When I mentioned that in the May 26th newsletter, I said I planned to spend the week reading and weeding, although not both at the same time.

A lot of you kindly emailed to say I could read and weed simultaneously by listening to books on Audible while in the garden.

Not my style.  

I think it's important to unplug when I'm not working, and that means unplug everything. When I'm off and outside, I don't want anything to remind me of my job or of being inside.

And gardens are full of sounds that I want to hear: not just the comforting thunk of my hoe turning clods of soil, but the sudden inquisitive rush of a hummingbird, the near-silence of a garter snake decanting itself down a hole, the rice-paper rustle of a wasp nibbling on a fencepost to make pulp for its nest, the tiny soft ticking sound that peas make inside the pod when you bump the vine.

A phone in my pocket isn't compatible with turning compost piles, either. I like to turn my compost until I'm spattered with muck and the warm, dark, sour smell clears away as I pitchfork one layer onto the next.

So no audio books for me while gardening.

A lot of you also wanted me to tell you what I did read when I wasn't gardening. I hate to disappoint you, but I never even look at books about business when I'm not working. I want my brain to have a break from its customary diet.

If you must know, I read an anthology of Mark Twain's speeches and two volumes of Virginia Woolf's diary. I do recommend unplugging completely when you're not working, although I don't expect anybody to do exactly as I do. You don't have to like my book choices, although I did. They will, I hope, help me write a little better. As Twain said: "My habits protect my life but they would assassinate you."

What we asked last time was:

To use Phil Mickelson's phrase, how do you "elongate your focus" with your investments? How do you keep your attention on your long-term goals in a short-term world?

Here are a few of my favorite responses.

I remind myself that my goals are different than [those] of my “board of directors" (short list of people I discuss investing ideas with) and of a few times years ago I missed out when I let certain opinions steer my decision to invest. —Patti Weinberg, New York

Remind yourself of the innate benefits, such as smaller capital-gains tax rates after a year. Do I think I will be able to hold this for more than a year? This will give you a framework to decide which stocks will be best in the long term, and thus best for you overall. —Mateen Sekandari (age 17), Glendale, Ariz.

Save old newspapers and read them a few years later. It gives you great perspective and the ability to sift through hype with something that looks like wisdom. —Brian Hamburger, Cresskill, N.J.

Investing is like riding a bike: where we look at is where we will end up at. The deeper I dig into the workings of the underlying business, the more I focus on the long term, because business strategy and execution take time to play out. By focusing more on the business...short-term price...doesn’t drive my decisions anymore. —Kangping Wang, Singapore

Write down the goal or objective for making the investment. Then write under the goal the reason(s) you believe the investment will support achievement of the goal. It may also help to note in your log the frame of mind you are in along with the input that drove your investment decision. Visit this log when you have second thoughts or impulse to deviate. —Matt Constantino, Atlanta

Which non-business book has had the biggest influence on you as an investor?

To share your thoughts, just hit reply to this email. Please include your name and city, thanks!

A hundred years ago, buying some stocks was like digging for coal with your bare hands. Beyond a few giant companies whose shares traded in large quantities, investors could wait days or weeks to be able to trade at a decent price. Brokerage firms regularly placed "wanted" ads to try to locate shares of stock their customers were interested in buying.

Look at these ads from Page One of The Wall Street Journal exactly a century ago, June 8, 1921:

Here are some of the best things I found over the past week outside The Wall Street Journal:

• The U.S. housing market is so crazy that a prospective buyer promised to name her first-born after the seller and still didn't get the house, says the Atlantic
• Giant investors want to make executive compensation depend on socially responsible goals, shows a new institutional survey
• One of the biggest investors cashing in on the SPAC boom is former junk-bond king Michael Milken, reports Forbes

Here are some of the best things I found recently in The Wall Street Journal:

• Part 3 of The Journal podcast's brilliant series on GameStop, "To the Moon," on the history of democratizing the stock market (I have a cameo) 
• The governor of West Virginia has personally guaranteed $700 million in loans from failed British finance firm Greensill Capital, report Julie Steinberg and Duncan Mavin
• Unsure whether it's pandemically correct to give or accept a hug or handshake? Wear a color-coded bracelet, says Jennifer Levitz

(I restarted my business and finance reading yesterday!)

Be well and invest well,

Jason

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When I paused to lean on my hoe, these sounds and sights I heard and saw anywhere in the row, a part of the inexhaustible entertainment which the country offers.  —Henry David Thoreau