MMF Assets Fall Ahead of April 15
ICI's latest "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money market mutual fund assets falling sharply ahead of the April 15 tax payment date to $6.080 trillion in the latest week after a jump the prior week. MMF assets are still up by $194 billion, or 4.1%, year-to-date in 2024 (through 4/10/24), with Institutional MMFs up $68 billion, or 2.2% and Retail MMFs up $126 billion, or 7.5%. Over the past 52 weeks, money funds have risen by $803 billion, or 15.2%, with Retail MMFs rising by $513 billion (26.9%) and Inst MMFs rising by $290 billion (8.6%). The weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $30.98 billion to $6.08 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, April 10, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $28.03 billion and prime funds decreased by $3.19 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $249 million." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs falling $17.9 billion and Retail MMFs dropping $13.1 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $4.930 trillion (81.1% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $1.026 trillion (16.9%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $124.3 billion (2.0%). ICI explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $13.07 billion to $2.42 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $10.30 billion to $1.55 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.07 billion to $751.42 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $291 million to $112.69 billion." Retail assets account for over a third of total assets, or 39.7%, and Government Retail assets make up 64.2% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $17.91 billion to $3.66 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $17.74 billion to $3.38 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $125 million to $274.27 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $42 million to $11.57 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 60.3% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 92.2% of all institutional MMF totals. According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets have risen by $100.6 billion in April (through 4/10) to $6.498 trillion (they were a record $6.538 trillion on 4/2). Assets fell $68.8 billion in March, but rose $72.1 billion in February, $93.9 billion in January, $32.7 billion in December and $226.4 billion in November. MMF totals fell by $31.9 billion in October. They rose $93.9 billion in September, $98.3 billion in August and $34.7 billion in July. Note that ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data, so they're over $400 billion lower than Crane's asset series.
