Crane Data's latest monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings statistics will be sent out Friday, and we'll be writing our regular monthly update on the new December 31 data for Monday'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 Thursday. (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 December 31, includes holdings information from 993 money funds (up 7 from last month), representing assets of $7.250 trillion (up from $7.131 trillion). Prime MMFs rose to $1.065 trillion (up from $1.058 trillion), or 14.7% of the total. We review the new N-MFP data, and we also look at our revised MMF expense data, which shows charged expenses were mostly flat and money fund revenues rose to $19.3 billion (annualized) in December.
Our latest Form N-MFP Summary for All Funds (taxable and tax-exempt) shows Treasuries and Repurchase Agreements (Repo) remain the largest types of portfolio holdings in money market funds. Treasury holdings in money market funds now total $2.993 trillion (down from $3.050 trillion), or 41.3% of all assets, while Repo holdings rose to $2.619 trillion (up from $2.390 billion), or 36.1% of all holdings. Government Agency securities total $885.6 billion (up from $852.1 billion), or 12.2%. Holdings of Treasuries, Government agencies and Repo (almost all of which is backed by Treasuries and agencies) combined total $6.498 trillion, or a massive 89.6% of all holdings.
The Other category (primarily Time Deposits) totals $122.1 billion (down from $206.5 billion), or 1.7%, and Commercial paper (CP) totals $298.9 billion (down from $306.7 billion), or 4.1% of all holdings. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) total $192.4 billion (up from $187.6 billion), 2.7%, and VRDNs account for $138.5 billion (up from $138.2 billion), or 1.9% of money fund securities.
Broken out into the SEC's more detailed categories, the CP totals were comprised of: $196.8 billion, or 2.7%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $75.5 billion or 1.0%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and, $26.6 billion, or 0.4%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals were made up of: U.S. Treasury Repo ($1.779 trillion, or 24.5%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($731.1B, or 10.1%) and Other Repo ($108.0B, or 1.5%).
The N-MFP Holdings summary for the Prime Money Market Funds shows: CP holdings of $254.8 billion (down from $263.4 billion), or 23.9%; Repo holdings of $513.8 billion (up from $406.6 billion), or 48.3%; Treasury holdings of $36.3 billion (down from $52.8 billion), or 3.4%; CD holdings of $167.0 billion (up from $162.3 billion), or 15.7%; Other (primarily Time Deposits) holdings of $77.7 billion (down from $158.5 billion), or 7.3%; Government Agency holdings of $4.9 billion (up from $4.7 billion), or 0.5% and VRDN holdings of $10.2 billion (up from $9.9 billion), or 1.0%.
The SEC's more detailed categories show CP in Prime MMFs made up of: $176.1 billion (down from $180.2 billion), or 16.5%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $63.0 billion (down from $66.2 billion), or 5.9%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and $15.8 billion (down from $17.1 billion), or 1.5%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals include: U.S. Treasury Repo ($298.7 billion, or 28.1%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($126.4 billion, or 11.9%), and Other Repo ($88.7 billion, or 8.3%).
In related news, money fund charged expense ratios (Exp%) were mostly flat in December. Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index and Crane Money Fund Average were 0.27% and 0.38%, respectively, as of Dec. 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 Thursday 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.) 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 0.27%, unchanged from last month's level (also 19 bps higher than 12/31/21's 0.08%). The Crane Money Fund Average, a simple average of all taxable MMFs, showed a charged expense ratio of 0.38% as of Dec. 31, 2024, down 1 bp from the month prior and slightly below the 0.40% at year-end 2019.
Prime Inst MFs expense ratios (annualized) average 0.22% (down 1 bp from last month), Government Inst MFs expenses average 0.26% (down 4 bps from last month), Treasury Inst MFs expenses average 0.29% (unchanged from last month). Treasury Retail MFs expenses currently sit at 0.52%, (unchanged from last month), Government Retail MFs expenses yield 0.55% (unchanged from last month). Prime Retail MF expenses averaged 0.50% (unchanged from last month). Tax-exempt expenses were up 1 bp at 0.40% on average.
Gross 7-day yields were down during the month ended December 31, 2024. The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds tracked by Crane Data (currently 723), shows a 7-day gross yield of 4.55%, down 17 bps 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 down 16 bps, ending the month at 4.55%.
According to our revised MFI XLS and Crane Index numbers, we now estimate that annualized revenue for all money funds is $19.293 billion (as of 12/31/24), a new record high. Our estimated annualized revenue totals increased from $19.105B last month and $18.473B seen two months ago. Revenue levels are more than six 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 inflows resume to money funds following a pause around April 15.
