Crane Data Subscribers
Money Fund Assets Break Record $3.4 Trillion Despite Tax-Free Flows. The ICI's weekly totals show an increase of $20.86 billion in money market mutual fund assets the week ended Feb. 20 to a record $3.408 trillion, the first ever tally above $3.4 trillion. Retail assets grew $9.75 billion to $1.233 trillion; institutional assets grew $11.11 billion to $2.175 trillion. Tax-exempt retail assets fell by $988 million to $291.7 billion and institutional tax-exempt assets fell by $8.65 billion to $176.3 billion as lower yields due to lack on monoline-free supply drove away investors. Government funds experienced a huge surge on yet another flight-to-quality, rising $26.9 billion on the institutional side and $4.9 billion on the retail side. Money funds have increased by an unprecedented nine weeks in a row and are off to their fastest start ever. This follows 2007's gargantuan $740 billion increase, the biggest asset increase in history. YTD, money fund assets have grown by $261.9 billion, or 8.3%, and over 52 weeks assets have grown by almost $1 trillion ($989 billion, or 40.9%). Over the week ended Wednesday, our Crane 100 Index decreased from 3.54% to 3.46%, while our new daily Crane Tax-Exempt MF Index declined from 1.80% to 1.30% (7-day yields).
