By: Michael E. Martinez

Even though this isn't a strategy for stocks, it still is a popular strategy among conservative investors. It can be hard to invest in CD's when the rates are low for long periods of time. The most common way to make the most of rate cycles is to ladder them. You can set up different CD's spread out over time with several maturity dates.

According to the State Farm CD Calculator, if you invested $1,000 at a rate of 4.21 percent for a period of 90 days, and another $1,000 at a rate of 4.31 percent for a period of 180 days, you would gain an extra $20 in interest by using this method. This may not seem like a lot, but the bigger initial investment you have, the bigger and better the interest will be.

It should be noted that the responsibility for maintaining the ladder falls on the depositor, not the financial institution. Because the ladder does not depend on the financial institution, depositors are free to distribute a ladder strategy across more than one bank, which can be advantageous as smaller banks may not offer the longer terms found at some larger banks. Although laddering is most common with CD's, this strategy may be employed on any time deposit account with similar terms.