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 February 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 February 28, includes holdings information from 989 money funds (up 6 from last month), representing assets of $7.388 trillion (up from $7.250 trillion 2 months ago). Prime MMFs rose to $1.107 trillion (up from $1.065 trillion), or 15.0% 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 $19.4 billion (annualized) in February. (Note: Please join us for our upcoming Bond Fund Symposium, which is March 27-28 in Newport Beach, Calif!)
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 $2.967 trillion (up from $2.993 trillion), or 40.2% of all assets, while Repo holdings rose to $2.729 trillion (up from $2.619 billion), or 36.9% of all holdings. Government Agency securities total $885.7 billion (up from $885.6 billion), or 12.0%. Holdings of Treasuries, Government agencies and Repo (almost all of which is backed by Treasuries and agencies) combined total $6.581 trillion, or a massive 89.1% of all holdings.
The Other category (primarily Time Deposits) totals $166.2 billion (up from $122.1 billion), or 2.3%, and Commercial paper (CP) totals $315.2 billion (up from $298.9 billion), or 4.3% of all holdings. Certificates of Deposit (CDs) total $189.9 billion (down from $192.4 billion), 2.6%, and VRDNs account for $135.4 billion (down from $138.5 billion), or 1.8% of money fund securities.
Broken out into the SEC's more detailed categories, the CP totals were comprised of: $193.6 billion, or 2.6%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $85.9 billion or 1.2%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and, $35.7 billion, or 0.5%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals were made up of: U.S. Treasury Repo ($1.802 trillion, or 24.4%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($819.1B, or 11.1%) and Other Repo ($106.9B, or 1.4%).
The N-MFP Holdings summary for the Prime Money Market Funds shows: CP holdings of $273.0 billion (up from $254.8 billion), or 24.6%; Repo holdings of $460.7 billion (down from $513.8 billion), or 41.6%; Treasury holdings of $78.8 billion (up from $36.3 billion), or 7.1%; CD holdings of $166.3 billion (down from $167.0 billion), or 15.0%; Other (primarily Time Deposits) holdings of $113.6 billion (up from $77.7 billion), or 10.3%; Government Agency holdings of $5.0 billion (up from $4.9 billion), or 0.5% and VRDN holdings of $10.4 billion (up from $10.2 billion), or 0.9%.
The SEC's more detailed categories show CP in Prime MMFs made up of: $174.0 billion (down from $176.1 billion), or 15.7%, in Financial Company Commercial Paper; $75.3 billion (up from $63.0 billion), or 6.8%, in Asset Backed Commercial Paper; and $23.8 billion (up from $15.8 billion), or 2.1%, in Non-Financial Company Commercial Paper. The Repo totals include: U.S. Treasury Repo ($241.9 billion, or 21.8%), U.S. Govt Agency Repo ($129.8 billion, or 11.7%), and Other Repo ($89.1 billion, or 8.0%).
In related news, money fund charged expense ratios (Exp%) were mostly flat in February. Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index and Crane Money Fund Average were 0.27% and 0.38%, respectively, as of Jan. 31, 2025. 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.) 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 Feb. 28, 2025, up one bp from the month prior but slightly below the 0.40% at year-end 2019.
Prime Inst MFs expense ratios (annualized) average 0.23% (unchanged from last month), Government Inst MFs expenses average 0.26% (up 1 bp 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 unchanged at 0.40% on average.
Gross 7-day yields were slightly lower during the month ended February 28, 2025. The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds tracked by Crane Data (currently 727), shows a 7-day gross yield of 4.42%, down 3 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 3 bps, ending the month at 4.43%.
According to our revised MFI XLS and Crane Index numbers, we now estimate that annualized revenue for all money funds is $19.723 billion (as of 2/28/25), a new record high. Our estimated annualized revenue totals increased from $19.437B last month and $19.293B 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.
