The ICI's most recent "Money Market Mutual Fund" weekly report shows money fund assets jumping in the latest week; they've risen by approximately $50 billion so far in September. Assets will have risen strongly in each of the past 3 months. ICI says, "Total money market mutual fund assets increased by $35.92 billion to $2.694 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, September 25, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Taxable government funds increased by $20.73 billion, taxable non-government funds increased by $16.33 billion, and tax-exempt funds decreased by $1.14 billion." Year-to-date, ICI's weekly series shows assets up by $29 billion, or 1.1%, through Sept. 25. ICI also released its latest "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds," which confirmed declines in repo and a jump in CD holdings. (See Crane Data's Sept. 16 News, "Aug. MF Portfolio Holdings Show Drop in Repo, Treasuries, Jump in CDs.")
ICI's latest monthly "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, August 2013" shows money fund assets increased by $20.4 billion in August after rising $26.8 billion in July (they also decreased $16.9 billion in June and rose $28.3 billion in May). Money funds assets fell in all of the first four months of 2013 too (down $24.5 billion in April, $57.6 billion in March, $31.7 billion in February, and $9.1 billion in January). YTD through 8/31, ICI shows money fund assets down by $60.8 billion, or 2.3%. The Institute's bond fund totals showed asset declines continuing, down $61.0 billion, after bond fund assets declined by $6.4 billion in July and by a record $143.1 billion in June. (Note that assets include gains and losses and differ from "flows".)
ICI's August "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds decreased by $208.3 billion, or 1.5 percent, to $13.857 trillion in August, 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 $29.53 billion in August, compared with an outflow of $16.75 billion in July."
It adds, "Money market funds had an inflow of $19.61 billion in August, compared with an inflow of $26.64 billion in July. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an inflow of $8.15 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an inflow of $11.46 billion." ICI's "Liquid Assets of Stock Mutual Funds" remain close to record lows at 3.8%, showing stock funds hold thin but growing buckets of cash.
ICI's Portfolio Holdings for August 2013 show that Repos declined by $38.9 billion, or 7.9% to $452.1 billion (19.1% of assets). The decrease in repos dropped them into third place among segments of taxable money fund portfolio holdings (behind CDs). Holdings of Certificates of Deposits, now the largest position, increased by $51.3 billion to $523.0 billion (22.1%). Treasury Bills & Securities, the second largest segment, increased by $13.0 billion to $477.9 billion (20.2%).
Commercial Paper, which fell by $11.9 billion, or 3.1%, remained the fourth largest segment ahead of U.S. Government Agency Securities; CP holdings totaled $370.5 billion (15.7% of assets). Agencies rose by $7.8 billion to $352.7 billion (14.9% of taxable assets). Notes (including Corporate and Bank) fell by $11.8 billion to $85.9 billion (3.6% of assets), and Other holdings fell by $2.0 billion to $82.0 billion (3.5%).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds decreased by 34,644 to 24.652 million, while the Number of Funds rose by 2 to 391. The Average Maturity of Portfolios remained flat at 49 days in August. Over the past year, WAMs of Taxable money funds have lengthened by 2 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 (we will be updating our Sept. MFI XLS to reflect the 8/31 composition data and maturity on Monday), while ICI collects a separate monthly Composition series.
