With just two months to go, preparations are fully underway for Crane Data's big show, Money Fund Symposium. Money Fund Symposium 2024 is scheduled for June 12-14, 2024 at The Westin Pittsburgh, in Pittsburgh, Pa, and we're expecting a record crowd of over 600. The latest agenda for the largest gathering of money market fund managers and cash investors in the world is available and registrations are still being taken. Money Fund Symposium attracts money fund managers, marketers and servicers, cash investors, money market securities dealers, issuers, and regulators. Visit the Money Fund Symposium website at www.moneyfundsymposium.com for more information. Registration is $1,000, and discounted hotel reservations are available. We hope you'll join us in Pittsburgh in June! We review our latest conference information, as well as our upcoming April Treasury show travel schedule (including TEXPO and NEAFP), below.
We're also making plans for our next European Money Fund Symposium, which is scheduled for Sept. 19-20, 2024, in London, England. Our 2023 event in Edinburgh, Scotland attracted a record 166 attendees, so we expect our 2024 event to be even bigger. Watch for the draft agenda to be posted in coming weeks and registration ($1000 to attend) is now live. European Money Fund Symposium offers "offshore" money fund portfolio managers, and money market investors, issuers, dealers and service providers a concentrated and affordable educational experience, as well as an excellent and informal networking venue.
Mark your calendars too for our next Money Fund University "basic training" event, scheduled for Dec. 19-20, 2024, in Providence, R.I, and for next year's Bond Fund Symposium conference, which is scheduled for March 27-28, 2025, in Newport Beach, Calif. Let us know if you'd like more details on any of our events, and we hope to see you in Pittsburgh in June, in London in September, in Providence in December or in Newport Beach next March!
Crane Data will be exhibiting at a couple of upcoming regional treasury events, including TEXPO 2024 in Houston, which starts Sunday (4/14) and runs through April 16, and New England AFP, which takes place April 25-26 in Boston. We hope to see some of you at these shows, and we review some of the sessions involving money market funds and cash investing, below.
The TEXPO agenda includes presentations entitled, "Regulatory, Rate and Regime Changes: A Perfect Storm for Liquidity Investors?" with Jeff Jones of Twisted X, Wes Rager of Invesco, and Brittany O'Shea of Texas Capital; "Don't Just Set It and Forget it. Investing Public Funds Across Texas: Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio" with Laurel Eagan Kenny of Turningpoint Communications, Jenny Kerzman of the City Controller's Office, City of Dallas, Vernon Middleton D Lewis of the City of Houston Treasury Department, Debbie Fleming of the City of Austin, Texas and Brett Sekula of the City of San Antonio, Texas; "Safety? Liquidity? Yield? Best Practices for Today's Corporate Cash Investor" with Sara Flour of RBC Global Asset Management; "Asset Allocation, Manage the Balance Between Risk and Return" with Will Goldthwait of State Street Global Advisors and Lina Arikat of ExxonMobil; "Managing Cash on the Peak of Mount Rates" with Patrick O'Callaghan of Goldman Sachs and Justin Sims of ConocoPhillips; and, "Cash Optimization to Improve Return on Latent Cash" with Daniel O'Brien of Morgan Stanley and Wade Olsen of Treasury Suite.
The New England AFP Annual Conference agenda includes sessions entitled, "Managing Cash on the Peak of Mount Rates" with Jamie Cortas of Dell and Larry Walsh and Anuj Bhatia of Goldman Sachs; "Strategies to Managing Liquidity and Investments in Today's Environment" with Sherry Bruno of the Enstar Group, John Paris of Gilbane Building Co., and Anisha Gulati and Sean Colman of Bank of America; "Stairway to Seven Trillion: Why Money Markets Should Stay Hot Even as Rates Move Lower with Peter Crane of Crane Data and Susan Hill of Federated Hermes; "Investing Short-term Funds for the Long-term in Today's Interest Rate Environment" with Seth Roman of Longfellow Investment Management; and, "Managing Liquidity and Short-Term Investments through the Cycle" with Matthew Jones of Western Asset Management.
In other news, Financial-Planning.com recently published an article titled, "Why cash is still king -- even with Fed cuts looming." They write, "As investors and financial advisors wait on the Fed to slash interest rates three times this year, experts say cash assets represent an attractive and often under-discussed opportunity. Rising interest rates have pushed the average yield on money markets and other cash-equivalent funds above 5.1%, according to research firm Crane Data, the publisher of the 'Money Fund Intelligence' report."
The piece states, "Those returns remain much higher than the infinitesimal gains for clients in so-called sweep accounts that automatically generate big profits for many large wealth management firms on customer cash holdings, as well as the paltry yields on trillions of dollars in savings and checking accounts at the massive giants of the banking world. Last year's banking crisis also highlighted how diversification of cash holdings can provide more Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation protection in the event of an institution's failure."
It continues, "To be sure, many investors are heeding those factors: Last year, assets in money-market funds jumped 22% to $6.36 trillion, according to the Fed. However, more potential landing spots for cash assets are hitting the market almost every day. Available research indicates that advisors may not be aware of the amount of clients' holdings in non-yielding accounts, suggesting that they could bring up the topic much more in client conversations. In addition, the Fed cuts expected to begin in June or July could open more windows for shifts in portfolios, depending on whether clients need access to cash for liquidity or see a chance for higher yield."
Financial Planning quotes Ben Cruikshank, president of Flourish, "The vast majority of our deposits are still coming from checking accounts from large money- center banks that pay virtually zero. That can be a little hard at times for people who work in financial services to remember.... Your clients have a lot of cash that is held away from you as an advisor and you as an advisor actually have a lot less visibility into that cash than you think."
The article cites "Capgemini's World Wealth Report," which comments, "Cash and cash equivalents, which was stable at around 25% of portfolios for the last give years (2018-2022), significantly increased -- by almost 10 percentage points -- to 34% as of January 2023. Rising interest rates and high inflation have made returns on cash and cash equivalents more attractive, and they are less risky."
