ICI's latest "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, June 2013" shows money fund assets decreased by $16.9 billion in June, after rising $28.3 billion in May, and falling in every prior month for 2013 (down $24.5 billion in April, $57.6 billion in March, $31.7 billion in February, and $9.1 billion in January). YTD through 6/30, ICI shows money fund assets down by $110.3 billion, or 4.1%. The Institute's bond fund totals showed the breadth of the massacre in the fixed-income markets, though, with bond funds losing a record $143.1 billion (4.1%) in assets in June. (Note that assets include gains and losses and differ from "flows".) ICI also released its latest "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds," which verified the traditional quarter-end plunge in repo holdings. (See Crane Data's July 12 News, "Repo, Europe-Related Holdings Plunge; CDs, Treasuries Now Largest.") Money fund assets are up strongly in July though. Month-to-date through 7/29, our MFI Daily shows assets increasing by $43.9 billion, or 1.8%, with Institutional assets leading the way (up $46.1 billion).
ICI's June "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds decreased by $310.3 billion, or 2.2 percent, to $13.637 trillion in June, 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.... Bond funds had an outflow of $60.47 billion in June, compared with an inflow of $12.20 billion in May."
It adds, "Money market funds had an outflow of $18.00 billion in June, compared with an inflow of $28.34 billion in May. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an outflow of $45.84 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an inflow of $27.84 billion." ICI's "Liquid Assets of Stock Mutual Funds" figure remains near a record low at 3.7%, showing stock funds continue to hold razor-thin buckets of cash.
ICI's Portfolio Holdings for June 2013 show that Repos plummeted $65.6 billion, or 12.5%, to $457.9 billion (19.7% of assets). Repos traditionally decline sharply at quarter-ends; the decline moved them down to the second largest segment of taxable money fund portfolio holdings behind CDs this month. Holdings of Certificates of Deposits, now the largest position, dipped by $5.3 billion to $482.9 billion (20.8%). Treasury Bills & Securities, the third largest segment, increased by $27.8 billion to $456.3 billion (19.6%).
Commercial Paper remained the fourth largest segment ahead of U.S. Government Agency Securities; CP holdings fell by $16.1 billion to $363.4 billion (15.6% of assets) and Agencies rose by $28.3 billion to $351.6 billion (15.1% of taxable assets). Notes (including Corporate and Bank) fell again (down $6.0 billion) to $92.5 billion (4.0% of assets), and Other holdings rose by $1.2 billion to $90.0 billion (3.9%).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds increased by 122,841 to 24.654 million, while the Number of Funds remained flat at 393. The Average Maturity of Portfolios lengthened by one day to 50 days in June after being flat at 49 days for 4 months straight. Over the past year, WAMs of Taxable money funds have lengthened by 4 days.
Note that Crane Data publishes daily asset totals via our Money Fund Intelligence Daily and monthly asset totals via our Money Fund Intelligence XLS. ICI publishes a weekly "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" summary, as well as the above-referenced monthly asset totals. Each data set and time series contains slight differences among the tracked universes of money market mutual funds. Crane also publishes monthly Money Fund Portfolio Holdings and calculates a monthly Portfolio Composition totals from these, while ICI collects a separate monthly Composition series.
