Earlier this month, the Investment Company Institute released its latest quarterly "Worldwide Mutual Fund Assets and Flows First Quarter 2010." The compilation of worldwide fund association totals shows global money fund assets declined by $431.7 billion, or 8.2%, to $4.840 trillion in Q1 2010. Declines in U.S. money funds accounted for over three-quarters of the drop, or $332.2 billion (down 10.0%), while declines in France, Luxembourg, China, and Italy accounted for most of the remainder.
ICI says, "Mutual fund assets worldwide increased 0.3 percent to $23.02 trillion at the end of the first quarter of 2010. In total, worldwide mutual funds had $104 billion in net outflows in the first quarter, compared to $77 billion in net inflows in the fourth quarter of 2009. Net flows into long-term funds were $303 billion in the first quarter of 2010, with flows into bond funds, at $169 billion, accounting for more than one-half of long-term funds flows.... Net outflows from money market funds nearly doubled in the first quarter of 2010 to $406 billion, from $206 billion in outflows in the previous quarter, more than offsetting the flows into long-term funds. Over the past year, net outflows from money market funds have averaged $277 billion per quarter."
The Worldwide Flows report shows that the U.S. accounts for 56.5% of all assets with $2.984 trillion (as of March 31, 2010). France ranks second with 11.8%, or $622.8 billion (though some don't consider France true "money market funds"); we estimate that Ireland ranks third with 8.4%, or $442.6 billion; Luxembourg ranks fourth at 8.0%, or $424.7 billion; and, Australia ranks fifth with 4.6% of assets, or $244.5 billion. (Ireland and Luxembourg are home to the vast majority of "offshore" U.S.-style money market funds marketed to multinational companies. Note too that Crane Data adjusted ICI's numbers to include Ireland, which doesn't break out money market funds. We estimate that half of Ireland's assets are money funds.)
The list of largest money fund markets also includes: Korea ($73.6 billion), Italy ($69.1 billion), Mexico ($50.7 billion), Canada ($47.1 billion), South Africa ($34.2 billion), Brazil ($30.2 billion), Taiwan ($27.8 billion), Switzerland ($26.1 billion), and Japan ($25.0 billion). The largest percentage decline was seen by China, which experienced a massive 55.1% decline in assets (down $21.0 billion). Italy (down 14.6%), Portugal (down 16.8%) and Greece (down 34.1%) also saw large percentage declines.
ICI's quarterly explains, "The Investment Company Institute compiles worldwide statistics on behalf of the International Investment Funds Association, an organization of national mutual fund associations. The collection for the first quarter of 2010 contains statistics from 43 countries." E-mail Kaio to request a copy of Crane Data's compilation of ICI's data into a "Largest Money Market Mutual Fund Markets Worldwide" spreadsheet.
