The June 2010 issue of Crane Data's Money Fund Intelligence newsletter, which goes out to subscribers this morning, features the articles: "MMF Reforms, Europe, Yields Climb Off Floor," which discusses shortening maturities and slowly unwinding fee waivers; "Money Funds in Europe: Q&A w/IMMFA's Le Coz," which interviews Institutional Money Market Funds Association Chairwoman Gail Le Coz; and "Plaze on History of 2a-7, Hinting at PWG Content," which reviews comments from a recent SEC Investor Advisory Committee presentation. MFI also contains money fund news, performance statistics, rankings and our benchmark Crane Money Fund Indexes. MFI XLS, our monthly spreadsheet "complement" to MFI, contains much more data, such as percentile rankings and fund family rankings too.
The lead article in our June issue says, "Concerns over European exposure and the impact of the first phase of the SEC's Money Market Fund Reforms going into effect dominated the money fund landscape in May. But there was a fair amount of good news during the past month too. Asset outflows slowed considerably, and yields continued their slow climb off of the zero floor.... [F]fund managers appear to be enjoying a reduction in fee waivers due to higher repo and now LIBOR rates."
Our interview with IMMFA's Le Coz asks, "How will the CESR news impact IMMFA and money funds in Europe? She tells us, "The impact is different for us, as we already had the IMMFA Code of Practice, as well as the guidelines from the ratings agencies in order to maintain the AAA rating. So, we already had our European money market fund rules by virtue of the Code and the rating. With the changes that we made to the Code last year, we have a 60 day WAM, we have a 120 day WAL, we have maturity limits, and we have credit limits by virtue of the credit rating agencies guidelines."
Finally, the SEC's Bob Plaze recently discussed the pending `President's Working Group report and its discussion of possible changes and options for money funds, saying, "They are really complex problems, and the problem is that ... if you pull here, you fix one problem and you created another set of problems over here. So you go over here and pull here and the same thing happens. What we've been doing is working with the Treasury, Federal Reserve Board and CFTC to come up with a paper that I hoped to be able to present with you this afternoon. But unfortunately it has not been issued yet. The Treasury controls that."
Look for more excerpts in the coming days, and let us know if you'd like to see the latest issue.
