ICI: Money Fund Assets Inch Lower
ICI published its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report Thursday. The weekly series shows money fund assets falling $5.0 billion to $6.941 trillion, after rising $37.6 billion the week prior and falling $4.1 billion two weeks ago. Four weeks ago, assets fell $125.4 billion. (These massive tax outflows were the largest weekly outflow in history). Money fund assets have still risen in 26 of the last 41, and 37 of the last 56 weeks, increasing by $637.4 billion (or 10.1%) since the Fed cut on 9/18/24 and increasing by $963.5 billion (or 16.1%) since 4/24/24. MMF assets are up by $892 billion, or 14.8%, in the past 52 weeks (through 5/14/25), with Institutional MMFs up $450 billion, or 12.4% and Retail MMFs up $443 billion, or 18.2%. Year-to-date, MMF assets are still up by $91 billion, or 1.3%, with Institutional MMFs down $43 billion, or -1.0% and Retail MMFs up $134 billion, or 4.9%. ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $5.01 billion to $6.94 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, May 14.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds decreased by $6.80 billion and prime funds increased by $5.21 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $3.42 billion." ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs decreasing $1.3 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $3.7 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $5.655 trillion (81.5% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $1.148 trillion (16.5%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $138.7 billion (2.0%). It explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $3.73 billion to $2.87 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $2.76 billion to $1.81 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $1.89 billion to $931.28 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $2.86 billion to $126.70 billion." Retail assets account for well over a third of total assets, or 41.3%, and Government Retail assets make up 63.1% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $1.29 billion to $4.07 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $4.04 billion to $3.84 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $3.32 billion to $216.36 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $567 million to $11.95 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 58.7% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 94.4% of all institutional MMF totals. According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets have increased by $28.6 billion in May (through 5/14/25) to $7.328 trillion, last month assets hit a record high of $7.384 trillion on April 3. Assets fell by $24.4 billion in April, they rose $2.8 trillion in March, $94.2 billion in February, $52.8 billion in January, $110.9 billion in December, $200.5 trillion in November, $97.5 billion in October, $149.8 billion in September, $109.7 billion in August, $16.6 billion in July, $15.7 billion in June and $91.4 billion in May. They declined by $15.8 billion in April 2024. Note that ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data, so they're over $330 billion lower than Crane's asset series.
