Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Tuesday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new March 31 data for Wednesday's News. But we also already uploaded a separate and broader Portfolio Holdings data set based on the SEC's Form N-MFP filings on Monday. (We continue to merge the two series, and the N-MFP version is now available via our Portfolio Holdings file listings to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) Our new N-MFP summary, with data as of March 31, includes holdings information from 975 money funds (up 6 from last month), representing assets of $6.492 trillion (down from $6.546 trillion). Prime MMFs now total $1.403 trillion, or 21.6% of the total. We review the new N-MFP data, and we also look at our revised MMF expense data, which shows charged expenses flat and money fund revenues seeing a small drop in March.
Our latest Form N-MFP Summary for All Funds (taxable and tax-exempt) shows Treasuries remaining the largest type of portfolio holding in money market funds after overtaking Repo several months ago. Treasury holdings total $2.564 trillion (down from $2.578 billion), or 39.5% of all holdings, while Repurchase Agreement (Repo) holdings in money market funds now total $2.382 trillion (up from $2.366 trillion), or 36.7% of all assets. Government Agency securities total $728.8 billion (down from $743.5 billion), or 11.2%. Holdings of Treasuries, Government agencies and Repo (almost all of which is backed by Treasuries and agencies) combined total $5.674 trillion, or a massive 87.4% of all holdings.
Commercial paper (CP) totals $314.8 billion (down from $318.4 billion), or 4.8% of all holdings, and the Other category (primarily Time Deposits) totals $158.1 billion (down from $178.7 billion), or 2.4%. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) total $217.4 billion (down from $236.2 billion), 3.3%, and VRDNs account for $127.9 billion (up from $125.4 billion last month), or 2.0% of money fund securities.
Broken out into the SEC's more detailed categories, the CP totals were comprised of: $197.7 billion, or 3.0%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $77.3 billion or 1.2%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and, $39.8 billion, or 0.6%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals were made up of: U.S. Treasury Repo ($1.613 trillion, or 24.8%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($682.4B, or 10.5%) and Other Repo ($86.3B, or 1.3%).
The N-MFP Holdings summary for the Prime Money Market Funds shows: CP holdings of $307.5 billion (down from $311.1 billion), or 21.9%; Repo holdings of $426.7 billion (up from $393.7 billion), or 30.4%; Treasury holdings of $241.6 billion (up from $227.4 billion), or 17.2%; CD holdings of $217.4 billion (down from $236.2 billion), or 15.5%; Other (primarily Time Deposits) holdings of $151.5 billion (down from $170.7 billion), or 10.8%; Government Agency holdings of $48.7 billion (up from $48.1 billion), or 3.5% and VRDN holdings of $9.6 billion (unchanged from $9.6 billion), or 0.7%.
The SEC's more detailed categories show CP in Prime MMFs made up of: $197.7 billion (down from $198.7 billion), or 14.1%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $77.3 billion (up from $76.6 billion), or 5.5%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and $32.6 billion (down from $35.8 billion), or 2.3%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals include: U.S. Treasury Repo ($224.8 billion, or 16.0%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($121.3 billion, or 8.6%), and Other Repo ($80.6 billion, or 5.7%).
In related news, money fund charged expense ratios (Exp%) were flat in March. Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index and Crane Money Fund Average were 0.26% and 0.37%, respectively, as of March 31, 2024. Crane Data revises its monthly expense data and gross yield information after the SEC updates its latest Form N-MFP data the morning of the 6th business day of the new month. (They posted this info Monday morning, so we revised our monthly MFI XLS spreadsheet and historical craneindexes.xlsx averages file to reflect the latest expenses, gross yields, portfolio composition and maturity breakout, then.) Visit our "Content" page for the latest files.
Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index, a simple average of the 100 largest taxable money funds, shows an average charged expense ratio of 0.26%, unchanged from last month's level (but 18 bps higher than 12/31/21's 0.08%). The average is now back around the level (0.27%) it was on Dec. 31, 2019, so we estimate that funds are charging normal expenses (though they are waiving a minimal amount of fees for competitive purposes). The Crane Money Fund Average, a simple average of all taxable MMFs, showed a charged expense ratio of 0.37% as of March 31, 2024, unchanged from the month prior and slightly below the 0.40% at year-end 2019.
Prime Inst MFs expense ratios (annualized) average 0.28% (unchanged from last month), Government Inst MFs expenses average 0.26% (unchanged from last month), Treasury Inst MFs expenses average 0.28% (down 1 bp from last month). Treasury Retail MFs expenses currently sit at 0.52%, (unchanged from last month), Government Retail MFs expenses yield 0.54% (down 1 bp from last month). Prime Retail MF expenses averaged 0.48% (unchanged from last month). Tax-exempt expenses were also up 2 bps at 0.42% on average.
Gross 7-day yields were slightly lower during the month ended March 31, 2024. The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds tracked by Crane Data (currently 760), shows a 7-day gross yield of 5.40%, unchanged from the prior month. The Crane Money Fund Average was 1.72% at the end of 2019, 0.15% at the end of 2020 and 0.09% at the end of 2021. Our Crane 100's 7-day gross yield was also unchanged, ending the month at 5.41%.
According to our revised MFI XLS and Crane Index numbers, we now estimate that annualized revenue for all money funds is $16.883 billion (as of 3/31/24). Our estimated annualized revenue totals decreased from the all-time high record of $17.070B last month and $16.855B two months ago. Revenue levels are more than five times larger than May's 2021's record-low $2.927B level. Charged expenses and gross yields are driven by a number of variables, but revenues should continue their climb higher as money funds continue to see inflows to start the new year.
