The April issue of our flagship Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which was sent to subscribers Monday morning, features the articles: "Money Market ETFs Now a Thing: Schwab Joins BlackRock," which discusses the recent launches of and news in the MM ETF space; "Bond Fund Symposium '25 Focus on Ultra-Shorts, ETFs," which looks at our recent conference in Newport Beach; and, "Worldwide MMFs Rise in Q4 to Record $11.6 Tril.; US, Lux" which reviews ICI's Worldwide fund totals. We also sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet Monday a.m., and we've updated our Money Fund Wisdom database with 3/31/24 data. Our April Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to ship on Wednesday, April 9, and our April Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to go out on Monday, April 14.
MFI's "Money Market ETF" article says, "It looks like we'll soon have a fourth 'money market' ETF offering. A Form N-1A Registration filing for the Schwab Government Money Market ETF (SGVT) tells us, 'The fund intends to operate as a government money market fund under the regulations governing money market funds. The fund will invest at least 99.5% of its total assets in cash, government securities and/or repurchase agreements.'"
The filing explains, "Although the fund intends to operate as a 'government money market fund,' it will not seek to maintain a stable net asset value ('NAV') per share nor will it use amortized cost.... Instead, the fund will calculate its NAV ... based on the market value of its investments. In addition, unlike a traditional money fund, the fund operates as an exchange traded fund ('ETF'). As an ETF, the fund's shares will be traded on the [NYSE] exchange and will generally fluctuate in accordance with changes in NAV as well as the relative supply of, and demand for, shares on the [NYSE]. You could lose money by investing."
We write in our BFS '25 article, "Crane Data recently hosted its latest Bond Fund Symposium in Newport Beach, Calif. The keynote talk, 'Ultra‐Short Bond Funds: Surf's Finally Up,' featured J.P. Morgan Securities' Teresa Ho, PIMCO's Jerome Schneider and J.P. Morgan Asset Management's Dave Martucci. Ho explains, 'What we're going to do ... is just give a high-level review of the short-term bond fund space from a performance perspective, flows, asset allocation. I'll ask Jerome and Dave to weigh in on some of these topics and ... give a sense of some of the things that they're seeing, and after that I'll follow up with a brief comment on other ultra-short investors.' (Note: Thanks again to those who supported BFS! Attendees and Crane Data subscribers may access the binder, PPTs and recordings via our 'Bond Fund Symposium 2025 Download Center.')"
It states, "She continues, 'So just to set the scene ... 2024 was certainly a great year for ultra-short bond funds. They generated returns greater than 5% for all of 2024.... They outperformed the longer-duration strategies, and they also outperformed money market funds.... But with that being said, it certainly wasn't without its volatility.... So clearly, a lot of the flow movement is driven by returns -- performance does drive flows in this particular space. But through it all ... it was still a positive year for the short-term fixed income space."
Our "Worldwide" piece says, "The Investment Company Institute published, 'Worldwide Regulated Open-Fund Assets and Flows, Fourth Quarter 2024,' which shows that money fund assets globally rose by $382.8 billion, or 3.4%, in Q4'24 to a record $11.598 trillion. (The totals would have been $11.871 trillion if Australia and New Zealand had been included.) Increases were led by a sharp jump in money funds in U.S. and Luxembourg, while Ireland and China also rose. Meanwhile, money funds in France and Korea were lower. MMF assets worldwide increased by $1.157 trillion, or 11.1%, in the 12 months through 12/31/24, and money funds in the U.S. now represent 59.1% of worldwide assets."
The piece continues, "ICI's release says, 'Worldwide regulated open-end fund assets, excluding assets in funds of funds, decreased 1.5% to $73.86 trillion at the end of the fourth quarter of 2024. Worldwide net cash inflows to all funds were $1.3 trillion in the fourth quarter, compared with $912 billion of net inflows in the third quarter of 2024. The Investment Company Institute compiles worldwide regulated open-end fund statistics on behalf of the International Investment Funds Association (IIFA), the organization of national fund associations.'"
MFI also includes the News brief, "Assets Flat in March, Return to Records in Early April. Crane Data's MFI Daily and ICI's latest weekly 'Money Market Mutual Fund Assets' show money fund assets jumping to record levels in early April, while our MFI XLS monthly shows a tiny asset dip in March. MFI XLS shows assets down $4.6 billion to $7.327 trillion in March, while our MFI Daily shows assets jumping $60.2 billion in April (through 4/3) to a record $7.384 billion.”
Another News brief, "Returns on Cash Remain Compelling," says, "The Boston Globe asks in a brief titled, 'Cash on the barrelhead,' 'Is there a sliver of a silver lining to this five-week stock market slide? Yes -- if you're sitting on extra cash and would like a safe place to stash it at a decent interest rate. Thanks to a cautious Fed ... returns on cash-like holdings remain compelling. Though rates on savings accounts, money market funds, and short-term Treasuries have dipped from their 2023 highs, they're still hanging in around 4 to 4.5%.'"
A third News brief, "State Street Global Advisors' (SSGA) asks, 'Why Is Cash Piling Up?'" states, "Will Goldthwait explains, 'As we move through a period of extreme uncertainty in Washington, it is no surprise that the markets are showing signs of anxiety.'"
A sidebar, "Tokenization Crazy Chain," says, "New press releases and product announcements in the tokenization and stablecoin world are coming out fast and furious. One, titled, 'ICE and Circle Sign MOU to Explore Product Innovation Based on Circle’s USDC and USYC Digital Assets,' tells us, 'Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, and Circle Internet Group, Inc., a global financial technology company and stablecoin market leader, ... announced an agreement whereby ICE plans to explore using Circle's stablecoin USDC, as well as tokenized money market offering US Yield Coin (USYC), to develop new products and solutions for its customers.'"
Our April MFI XLS, with March 31 data, shows total assets decreased $4.6 billion to $7.327 trillion, after increasing $90.4 billion in February, $47.9 billion in January, $113.0 billion in December, $196.1 billion in November, $89.9 billion in October, $155.2 billion in September, $105.6 billion in August, $19.7 billion in July, $11.8 billion in June and $79.7 billion in May. They decreased $17.6 billion last April and $66.7 billion in March 2024.
Our broad Crane Money Fund Average 7-Day Yield was down 1 bp to 4.04%, and our Crane 100 Money Fund Index (the 100 largest taxable funds) was down 1 bp to 4.15% in February. On a Gross Yield Basis (7-Day) (before expenses are taken out), the Crane MFA and the Crane 100 averaged 4.41% and 4.41%. Charged Expenses averaged 0.37% and 0.27% for the Crane MFA and the Crane 100. (We'll revise expenses once we upload the SEC's Form N-MFP data for 3/31/25 on Tuesday, 4/8.) The average WAM (weighted average maturity) for the Crane MFA was 34 days (down 1 day) and the Crane 100 WAM was down 1 day from the previous month at 36 days. (See our Crane Index or craneindexes.xlsx history file for more on our averages.)
