Money market mutual fund assets rose by $21.8 billion to $3.830 trillion in the week ended Dec. 30, their second consecutive record and the 10th record high out of the past 11 weeks. ICI's weekly totals show that institutional funds continue to lead the surge, increasing $18.7 billion to a record $2.545 trillion. (They broke $2.5 trillion last week.) Retail money fund assets rose $3.1 billion to $1.285 trillion; they remain $11 billion below their record high on Oct. 15.
While the official monthly totals won't be available for some time, ICI's weekly statistics show that money fund assets grew by approximately $685 billion, or 21.8%, in 2008, their second best year ever following 2007's $760 billion cash flood. Since the week ended Oct. 1, money fund assets have grown by a stunning $373 billion, or 10.8%. (Funds had declined by $129 billion in September.)
Government Institutional funds showed the largest asset increase last week, rising $10.9 billion to $1.180 trillion, while Prime Institutional funds increased by $7.3 billion to $1.180 trillion. This represented Prime Institutional funds' 8th consecutive weekly increase. Tax Exempt Institutional funds stopped a 3-week decline, rising $536 million to $184.9 billion.
Prime Retail fund assets increased by $2.7 billion to $722.8 billion, Government Retail fund assets decreased by $720 million to $263.7 billion, and Tax Exempt Retail money fund assets increased by $1.2 billion to $298.3 billion.
Our Money Fund Intelligence Daily shows that assets increased by an additional $4.0 billion on Wednesday, Dec. 31. Treasury Institutional funds continue seeing outflows, down $8.2 billion in the past week, while Government Institutional funds continue seeing heavy inflows, up $10.9 billion. Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index fell from 1.26% to 1.21% over the past week.
