I have an IRA with a savings bank which is comprised of about 4 seperate CDs with 4 different maturity dates. My question is, with the added complication of that, what would be the best way to rollover this entire IRA into say, another IRA with another institution?

Been there, except it was a credit union and 18 CDs, with maturities ranging over a 4 year period. First thing you want to do is check out the bank's fee structure. How much do they charge to transfer IRA funds to a different custodian? ["Free" is a good answer; my credit union charged $15.] If there is a fee, can you pay it once and transfer funds as CDs mature? ["Yes" is a good answer; in the case of my credit union, it was $15 every time a transfer is made.] Then ask them what the penalty is for breaking a CD. [Federal rules apply. For multi-year CDs it's 180 days of interest; I don't remember for shorter term CDs.]

Next thing you want to do is decide where you want the IRA to end up. Fools like discount brokers, and you might already have one in mind. If you don't already know who you want to deal with, you have some homework ahead of you. [I ended up at Waterhouse; no annual fee for IRAs, but there is a $25 transfer fee if I change my mind and want to move the account elsewhere.]

Once you've gone through the information gathering stage, you plan your course of action based on what you learn. Your proposed custodian ("broker") will have a form to fill out that initiates the transfer of your IRA from your current custodian ("bank"). This form can ask that CDs transfer at maturity, or that they transfer immediately. Immediate transfer typically requirest that the CDs be broken early, and you pay the interest penalty. If the bank has no fee for transfers, you might want to transfer funds at maturity. If there is a fee, you might want to transfer all funds at once and pay the CD termination fees instead of the multiple transfer fees. Run your own numbers and make a decision.

What I did: I decided to transfer the IRA early 1998. As CDs matured in 1998, I put the funds in the credit union money market account instead of renewing the CDs. When the last CD of 1998 matured in October, I had the credit union break the remaining CDs scheduled to mature in 1999 or later. [This was perhaps more conservative than necessary; I didn't want to take a chance on the forms from the broker getting screwed up and having the unmatured CDs fail to transfer.] Then I had the account transfered to the broker. Once the broker had the funds, I converted it to a Roth. [This was the point of breaking the CDs; I wanted the 1998 tax treatment on Roth conversions.] My CDs were earning various rates averaging around 6%. I paid about 3% in early termination penalties on the CDs that had to be broken, or about 2% of the total IRA. My Roth conversion account is up ~17% since it transfered, in about 9 months. [Okay, I invested a bit conservatively. I'm still doing better than I could have with the credit union.]

None of this tells you what is right for your money, but I hope it helps you figure out what analysis you need to do to support your decision.

Patzer