As you might expect, the combination of a shortened holiday workweek and continued apparent indifference on the part of major banks to give customer better rate deals, slowed down the fixed-income markets.

The result? Certificate of deposit rates are languishing this week where they were last week.

And that scenario isn’t likely to set off any fireworks among CD investors.

This week, the BankingMyWay national CD rate tracker shows a level playing field from a week so far in July. On the short-end, three-month CD rates drew back ever so slightly, from 0.60% to 0.58%; while six-month CDs hovered again at 0.90% from week to week.

One-year CDs were unchanged at 1.23%, while the best upward movement this week came from two- and four-year CDs, which rose 10- and 15-basis points, to 1.60% and 2.60%, respectively. (A basis point is equal to 1/100th of 1% - it’s a measure used by banks, lenders and bond traders to mark the change, one way or another, in the price of a given financial instrument, like a CD or a Treasury bond).

Actually, no news is the best news that CD investors have gotten in a while. And why not, given that rates were relatively stable this week, after months, even years of steady declines in bank CD yields?

Consider the average interest rates for one-year CDs, from July 2007 (before the economic storm hit), to July 2009. In that two-year period, rates on one-year CD’s have been in freefall, plummeting from 3.80% to 1.23% this week. The usual reasons for a slide in bank CDs don’t really apply this time, at least not all of them. Consider the Dow Jones industrial Average: the DJIA has fallen from over 14,000 points in October of 2007 to about 8,250 points in mid-morning trading on Monday, July 6. Usually in periods of stock market calamity and a six-thousand points drop in two years should qualify for “calamity” status, investors surge toward fixed income investments. That did happen for a while, but once investors figured out that banks just weren’t interested in rewarding CD or money market investors with decent rates, apathy reigned and investors drifted back toward stocks again.

And even though we’re in a climate of fewer CD investors than, say, six months ago, banks aren’t willing to attract new ones by raising rates. It’s like a ‘stall’ in weather, when low clouds hover over an area for days on end and are in no rush to leave.

As long as deflation, as moderate as it is, threatens an economic recovery, banks will be hard-pressed to raise CD rates, especially after the Federal Reserve came out recently and said that inflation wasn’t a problem.

With no carrot and no stick, CD investors are stuck in a “stall” of their own. And there’s no sign of the clouds lifting anytime soon.

Still. Don’t give up hope. Some decent CD yields are out there (especially from smaller banks, online banks, and credit unions), but you have to be vigilant about finding them.

Start doing just that with BankingMyWay’s CD rate search tool. Right now, it might be your best shot at finding a good CD deal.

— For more ways to save, spend, invest and borrow, visit MainStreet.com.