Money fund assets inched lower by $1.63 billion to $3.166 trillion in the week ended Feb. 24 according to the ICI's most recent weekly stats. ICI also reported monthly assets for January 2010, which showed money fund assets declined by $100 billion, or 3.0%. ICI also released Porfolio Holdings Totals which showed that taxable money funds added repo and sold government agencies, Treasuries, CP and CDs during the month.
The weekly "ICI Reports Money Market Mutual Fund Assets says, "Taxable government funds decreased by $3.60 billion, taxable non-government funds increased by $4.26 billion, and tax-exempt funds decreased by $2.28 billion.... Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $7.07 billion to $1.049 trillion.... Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $5.44 billion to $2.117 trillion. Among institutional funds, taxable government money market fund assets decreased by $1.66 billion to $806.75 billion, taxable non-government money market fund assets increased by $8.11 billion to $1.158 trillion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.00 billion to $151.87 billion."
The Institute's monthly asset series says, "Money market funds had an outflow of $102.72 billion [to total $3.217 trillion] in January, compared with an outflow of $852 million in December. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an outflow of $83.82 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $18.89 billion." The number of money funds (portfolios) in ICI's monthly report fell 704 from 705 the prior month and from 774 a year ago. "Liquid Assets of Stock Mutual Funds" remained at a record low of 3.6%.
Certificates of Deposit remained the largest holding in taxable money funds at 23.2%, or $657.6 billion. (This total includes $101.5 billion, or 3.6%, in Eurodollar CDs.) Repurchase agreements, or repos, moved into the No. 2 spot with 19.1% ($539.6 billion), moving ahead of No. 3 U.S. Government Agency securities ($505.6 billion, or 17.9%). Taxable money funds added $50.0 billion to repo holdings, while they decreased government agencies by $48.3 billion, decreased Treasury holdings by $37.7 billion, and decreased CP holdings by $25.5 billion.
Commercial Paper ranked fourth among taxable money funds' holdings in January according to ICI's "Month-End Portfolio Holdings" report with $494.8 billion, or 17.5% of assets. U.S. Treasury Bills and Other Treasury Securities combined for $376.9 billion, or 13.3% of assets (5th place), while Corporate Notes ($123.0 billion, or 4.3%), Bank Notes ($56.3 billion, or 2.3%), and "Other" securities made up the remainder. Average maturities of taxable money funds rose by two days to 51 days.
