The ICI released its latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing: April 2012" yesterday, which showed money market mutual fund assets fell by $24 billion in April (after falling $71 billion in March) to $2.558 trillion. Money fund assets now account for 20.6% of overall mutual fund assets; total fund assets, including stock and bond funds, dipped by $26 billion to $12.431 trillion. Bond fund assets continued surging. After breaking $3.0 trillion in March for the first time, assets grew an additional $50 billion in April to $3.121 trillion, or 25.1% of assets. ICI's "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Market Funds showed a sharp rebound in Repo holdings (up $52.3 billion) while most other composition sectors declined. The number of accounts outstanding showed its first increase in 8 months, rising over 21 thousand to 25.688 million.
ICI's latest "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds decreased by $26.3 billion, or 0.2 percent, to $12.431 trillion in April, according to the Investment Company Institute's official survey of the mutual fund industry. In the survey, mutual fund companies report actual assets, sales, and redemptions to ICI..... Money market funds had an outflow of $24.05 billion in April, compared with an outflow of $70.63 billion in March. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an outflow of $7.98 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $16.07 billion."
Month-to-date through May 29, Crane Data's Money Fund Intelligence Daily shows money fund assets rebounding slightly. They've increased by $5.7 billion (up 0.2%). YTD, we show an overall asset decline of $119 billion, or 4.6%. Our daily series shows increases in both Retail and Institutional funds in May; they've gained $4.2 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively.
ICI's Portfolio Holdings series shows Repurchase Agreements jumped in April after plunging in March (up $52.3 billion to $559.9 billion after falling $65.2 billion the prior month). Repos remain the largest portfolio holding among taxable money funds with 24.2% of assets. Treasury Bills & Securities remained the second largest segment at 19.6%, though these fell by $35.3 billion to $447.3 billion. Holdings of Certificates of Deposits, which rank third among portfolio holdings, also fell, declining by $14.1 billion to $389.4 billion (17.0%).
Commercial Paper rose by $2.1 billion to $365.0 billion, but CP remained the fourth largest composition sector with 15.0% of taxable asset composition. U.S. Government Agency Securities holdings continued to slide, dropping $14.7 billion to $319.4 billion, or 14.0% of assets. Notes (including Corporate and Bank) accounted for 5.4% of assets ($124.2 billion), while Other holdings accounted for 3.9% ($88.1 billion).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds increased to 25.69 million from 25.67 million the month before, while the Number of Funds declined by 6 to 417. The Average Maturity of Portfolios shortened to 45 days in April from 46 days in February. Finally, note that the archived version of our Money Fund Intelligence XLS monthly spreadsheet (see our Content Page to download) now has its Portfolio Composition and Maturity Distribution totals updated as of April 30, 2012. (We revise these following the monthly publication of our Money Fund Portfolio Holdings data.)
