We learned from Strategic Insight's SimFund Filing product that a number of money market mutual funds have made SEC filings to update or change strategies recently. Funds continue to update tax-exempt prospectuses to allow investment in taxable securities or cash, with Federated Municipal Cash Series being the most recent example. (Fundfiling.com subscribers may access the documents here.)
Other funds are updating investment policies to include, exclude or modify repurchase agreement and/or asset-backed commercial paper policies. Some funds are changing from prime to government investments, some are updating illiquid securities policies, some are updating redemption policies, and some are expounding upon overall portfolio risks. Some of the changes have been driven by the NAIC, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which has suddenly become more stringent in granting its approval for money market funds. (See the upcoming April issue of Money Fund Intelligence for our full article.) The volume of changes appears to be unprecedented.
Among the notable highlights: Williams Capital Liquid Assets Fund (not tracked by Crane Data) is changing its investment objective "from a Aaa/AAAm-rated prime money market fund to an Aaa/AAAm-rated U.S. government money market fund, effective on or about June 1, 2008"; State Street Institutional Investment Trust is limiting repos to "those member banks of the Federal Reserve System and broker-dealers whose creditworthiness the Advisor considers satisfactory"; and, Ambassador Money Market Fund, like many funds, will reserve the right to "suspend the redemption of shares of the Fund temporarily under extraordinary market conditions".
