Top-flight American companies have traditionally been able to raise cheap money at a moment's notice in the commercial-paper market. This offers short-term borrowing, typically for one month, but the term can range from overnight to 270 days. The beauty is, it could be rolled over forever. The buyers of the paper are mostly mutual funds and companies awash with cash. Banks' underwriting fees for commercial paper are tiny, often just a few hun-dredths of a percent of the issued amount. And short-term interest rates are, usually, the lowest available.
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