I recently inherited some of each of the following STRIPs:

U.S. T-BOND 11-15-21 STRIPPED PRINCIPAL PAYMENT
U.S.TREASURY SECURITY 11-15-09 STRIPPED INTEREST PAYMENT
U.S.TREASURY SECURITY 11-15-12 STRIPPED INTEREST PAYMENT

I understand conceptually what STRIPS are - kind of. But they are in an inherited IRA that requires me to cash out a certain percentage each year. My questions are:

1) How can I figure out what their current value is and how that will change over time?

2) Should I hold onto these or sell all or some of them and invest in a CD ladder (or something else) instead? If selling is a good idea, is this a good time to do it, or would I be better off waiting for a while? My crude understading of this is that their value may be going down because interest rates are going up, but that interest rates may continue to go up, so their value may continue to go down. But this may be overly simplistic.

3) Given that I have to sell a portion of them this year to make the mandatory annual distribution, which ones should I sell?

Thanks. /hb