In case you guys haven’t heard about them, Everbank has some interesting CDs available under the names MarketSafe, MetalsSelect, and WorldCurrency.

The theory is that you buy their special CDs and Everbank, and you get a 3 year CD that is tied to the performance of an index. If the index ends the 3 years below a pre-set threshhold, you get your principal back. If the index ends above the threshhold, you get your principal back plus some percentage return based on how much the index was over the threshhold.

The CDs includes indexes based on the price of Gold, Commodities, Oil, currencies (Euro, India, Iceland, Hong Kong, etc.). I think the offering for several of the CDs expires August 22, so if you’re interested do your homework quickly.

The CDs are very similar to MITTS. MITTS stands for Market Indexed Target Term Securities and they’ve been marketed by Merril Lynch in the past. They are basically ETFs (trade intra-day for ~$10-$12/share) that are a synthetic investment that is a combination of a zero coupon bond and a call option on some index (equity indeces). If the index doesn’t beat its threshhold you get $10 when it matures. You can get more explanation on MITTS from this article.

The CDs from Everbank have high minimums ($1500 for the Gold CD, $10k and up for others) and I believe there may be some administrative fees that are non-trivial. MITTs trade for as little as one share but don’t have high trading volume (plus you pay comissions).