In late October, the Investment Company Institute updated its latest quarterly "Worldwide Mutual Fund Assets and Flows Second Quarter 2010." The release says, "Mutual fund assets worldwide decreased 6.8 percent to $21.44 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2010.... In contrast to long-term funds, money market funds experienced negative net cash flows for the fifth consecutive quarter. Although money market fund outflows slowed to $247 billion in the second quarter from $406 billion in the first quarter, money market fund outflows more than offset flows into long-term funds."
The report explains, "The Investment Company Institute compiles worldwide statistics on behalf of the International Investment Funds Association, an organization of national mutual fund associations. The collection for the second quarter of 2010 contains statistics from 45 countries.... On a U.S. dollar–denominated basis, equity fund assets declined by 10.8 percent to $8.2 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter of 2010. Balanced/mixed fund assets decreased 5.6 percent and money market fund assets fell 7.5 percent in the second quarter. Bond fund assets grew 0.7 percent to $4.8 trillion in the second quarter."
ICI says, "Money market funds worldwide experienced $247 billion in net outflows in the second quarter, after registering $406 billion in net outflows in the first quarter of 2010. Reduced net outflows were attributable to money market funds in the Americas, were net outflows fell to $172 billion in the second quarter from $340 billion in the previous quarter. Outflows from European money market funds were $65 billion in the second quarter, compared to net outflows of $53 billion of net outflows in the first quarter.... Money market fund assets represented 21 percent of the worldwide total."
The Worldwide Assets and Flows report shows that the U.S. accounts for 57.5% of all assets with $2.814 trillion (as of June 30, 2010). France ranks second with 10.8%, or $526.4 billion (though some don't consider France true "money market funds"). Crane Data estimates that Ireland ranks third with 8.6%, or $418.7 billion; Luxembourg ranks fourth at 7.9%, or $385.1 billion; and, Australia ranks fifth with 4.8% of assets, or $233.8 billion. (Ireland and Luxembourg are home to the vast majority of "offshore" U.S.-style money market funds marketed to multinational companies. Note too that Crane Data has adjusted ICI's numbers to include Ireland, which doesn't break out money market funds. We estimate that half of Ireland's total $837.4 billion in assets are money funds.)
The list of largest money fund markets also includes: Korea ($64.8 billion), Italy ($54.7 billion), Mexico ($50.6 billion), Canada ($41.3 billion), South Africa ($33.7 billion), Brazil ($32.5 billion), Japan ($25.0 billion), Taiwan ($25.6 billion), Switzerland ($25.4 billion), and India ($15.5 billion). The largest percentage declines were seen by `Portugal and Spain, which experienced declines of 34.0% and 30.7%, respectively. France (down $96.4 billion, Luxembourg (down $39.6 billion) and Ireland (down $23.9 billion) also saw large declines in dollar terms.
E-mail Kaio to request a copy of Crane Data's compilation of ICI's data into a "Largest Money Market Mutual Fund Markets Worldwide" spreadsheet.
