ICI's latest "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, Sept. 2013" shows money fund assets increased by $46.7 billion in September, after increasing $20.4 billion in August and $26.8 billion in July. 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) but rose $28.3 billion in May (they fell $16.9 billion in June). YTD through 9/30, ICI shows money fund assets down by $13.8 billion, or 0.5%. The Institute's Sept. bond fund totals show a rebound in bond funds, up by $29.9 billion, after falling by $61.0 billon in August, $6.4 billion in July and a record $143.1 billion 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 confirmed our increase in assets and a sharp rebound in repo holdings. (See Crane Data's October 14 News, "Portfolio Holdings Show Jump in Repo on Fed Program; Drop in Europe.")
ICI's Sept. "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds increased by $442.1 billion, or 3.2 percent, to $14.300 trillion in September, 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 $11.33 billion in September, compared with an outflow of $29.14 billion in August."
It adds, "Money market funds had an inflow of $45.64 billion in September, compared with an inflow of $19.87 billion in August. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an inflow of $46.47 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $832 million." ICI's "Liquid Assets of Stock Mutual Funds" fell back to a near record low at 3.7% from 3.8%, showing stock funds continue to hold razor thin reserves of cash.
Crane Data's most recent "MFI Daily" shows money fund assets up by $10.9 billion in October through 10/29. From September 30 through October 16, money fund assets declined by $58.4 billion as concerns over the debt ceiling and a possible Treasury technical default surfaced. But money fund assets have risen by $69.3 billion since the extension of the ceiling on October 17. The vast majority of the declines in the first half of October were in Treasury and Government Institutional funds (down $30.9 billion and $21.5 billon, respectively), while Prime Institutional MMFs have gained the lion's share (up $45.9 billion) since 10/16.
ICI's Portfolio Holdings for Sept. 2013 show that Repos rebounded by $45.5 billion, or 10.1% (after a sharp drop in August) to $497.8 billion (20.6% of assets). Repos remains the second largest segment of taxable money fund portfolio holdings behind CDs. Holdings of Certificates of Deposits, still the largest position, rose by $11.0 billion to $532.3 billion (22.0%). Treasury Bills & Securities, the third largest segment, decreased by $3.2 billion to $474.9 billion (19.7%).
Commercial Paper, which fell by $8.4 billion, or 2.3%, remained the fourth largest segment ahead of U.S. Government Agency Securities. CP holdings totaled $364.4 billion (15.1% of assets). Agencies rose by $7.3 billion to $359.9 billion (14.9% of taxable assets). Notes (including Corporate and Bank) rose by $3.5 billion to $90.4 billion (3.7% of assets), and Other holdings rose by $2.3 billion to $84.7 billion (3.5%).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds decreased by 443,404 to 24.207 million, while the Number of Funds fell by 3 to 388. The Average Maturity of Portfolios shortened by one day to 48 days in Sept.. Over the past year, WAMs of Taxable money funds have shortened by 1 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 recently updated our October MFI XLS to reflect the 9/30 composition data and maturity breakouts), while ICI collects a separate monthly Composition series.
