MMF Assets Inch Higher for 3rd Week
The Investment Company Institute's latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report shows money fund assets rising $6.1 billion to $7.935 trillion. Assets rose $900 million the previous week and increased $18.3 billion the week before this. MMF assets are up by $728 billion, or 10.1%, over the past 52 weeks (through 8/26/26), with Institutional MMFs up $571 billion, or 13.4% and Retail MMFs up $157 billion, or 5.3%. Year-to-date in 2026, MMF assets are up by $201 billion, or 2.6%, with Institutional MMFs up $176 billion, or 3.8% and Retail MMFs up $25 billion, or 0.8%. ICI's weekly release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $6.11 billion to $7.93 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, August 26, the Investment Company Institute reported.... Among taxable money market funds, government funds increased by $6.31 billion and prime funds decreased by $834 million. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $633 million. "ICI's stats show Institutional MMFs increasing $9.5 billion and Retail MMFs decreasing $3.4 billion in the latest week. Total Government MMF assets, including Treasury funds, were $6.547 trillion (82.5% of all money funds), while Total Prime MMFs were $1.237 trillion (15.6%). Tax Exempt MMFs totaled $149.9 billion (1.9%). It explains, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $3.39 billion to $3.10 trillion. Among retail funds, government money market fund assets decreased by $2.17 billion to $1.98 trillion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.59 billion to $990.39 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $371 million to $137.35 billion." Retail assets account for 39.1% of the total, and Government Retail assets make up 63.7% of all Retail MMFs. They add, "Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $9.50 billion to $4.83 trillion. Among institutional funds, government money market fund assets increased by $8.49 billion to $4.57 trillion, prime money market fund assets increased by $754 million to $246.86 billion,and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $263 million to $12.53 billion." Institutional assets accounted for 60.9% of all MMF assets, with Government Institutional assets making up 94.6% of all institutional MMF totals. According to Crane Data's separate Money Fund Intelligence Daily series, money fund assets have increased by $69.3 billion to $8.358 trillion month-to-date in August (as of 8/26), assets reached an all-time high of $8.404 trillion on July 6. Assets decreased $61.4 billion in July, increased $58.6 billion in June, $208.6 billion in May, decreased by $108.8 billion in April, $49.3 billion in March, increased $99.5 billion in February, $32.9 billion in January, $126.3 billion in December, $132.8 billion in November, $142.1 billion in October, $105.2 billion in September and $132.0 billion last August. Note that `ICI's asset totals don't include a number of funds tracked by the SEC and Crane Data, so they're almost $400 billion lower than Crane's asset series.
