Money fund assets declined again over the past week following last week's $7.3 billion rebound (which broke a 7-week losing streak). The latest weekly "ICI Reports Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $10.20 billion to $2.57 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, April 30, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, treasury funds (including agency and repo) increased by $4.55 billion and prime funds decreased by $12.09 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $2.66 billion. Year-to-date, money fund assets have declined by $145 billion, or 5.3%, but we expect them to increase going forward and regain these lost assets over the remainder of 2014, following the seasonal patterns of the last several years (down through May but up slightly for the year).
ICI writes, "Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $5.97 billion to $901.34 billion. Treasury money market fund assets in the retail category decreased by $970 million to $199.48 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.10 billion to $515.15 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.90 billion to $186.71 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $4.24 billion to $1.67 trillion. Among institutional funds, treasury money market fund assets increased by $5.52 billion to $707.66 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $8.99 billion to $894.81 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $770 million to $70.28 billion."
Earlier this week, ICI also released its latest "Trends in Mutual Fund Investing, March 2014," which told us that money fund assets decreased by $29.6 billion in March, after decreasing $47.3 billion in February and $10.5 billion in January, and increasing $45.1 billion in December and $4.8 billion in November. For the 12 months through 3/31/14, ICI's monthly series shows assets up by $37.5 billion, or 1.4%. (For calendar 2013, ICI showed money fund assets up by $25.0 billion, or 0.9%.)
The Institute's March asset totals show an increase in both stock fund and bond fund assets; bond funds were up $12.7 billon after being up $37.8 billion in Feb. and $28.5 billion in January (but down $116.6 billion over the past year). ICI's March "Trends" says, "The combined assets of the nation's mutual funds decreased by $1.0 billion, or 0.0 percent, to $15.23 trillion in March, 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 inflow of $12.54 billion in March, compared with an inflow of $7.75 billion in February. Taxable bond funds had an inflow of $11.09 billion in March, versus an inflow of $6.17 billion in February. Municipal bond funds had an inflow of $1.45 billion in March, compared with an inflow of $1.58 billion in February."
It adds, "Money market funds had an outflow of $29.16 billion in March, compared with an outflow of $46.73 billion in February. Funds offered primarily to institutions had an outflow of $27.47 billion. Funds offered primarily to individuals had an outflow of $1.69 billion." Money funds represent 17.3% of all mutual fund assets while bond funds represent 22.8%.
ICI also released its latest "Month-End Portfolio Holdings of Taxable Money Funds," which verified our reported jump in repo and drops in most other composition segments in March. (See Crane Data's April 10 News, "March MF Holdings Show Fed Repo Skyrockets, Other Securities Plummet.")
ICI's Portfolio Holdings for March 2014 show that Holdings of Repos jumped by $41.7 billion, or 8.8%, (after declining by $11.6 billion in Feb. and $16.5 billion in Jan., and rising $43.0 billion in Dec.) to $513.8 billion (21.8% of assets). Repo moved up to become the largest segment of taxable money fund portfolio holdings in March according to ICI's data series. Certificates of Deposits declined by $54.1 billion (after declining by $11.6 billion in Feb., jumping by $48.4 billion in Jan., and falling $25.9 billion in Dec.) to $512.8 billion (21.7%); CDs fell to second place among the largest composition segments. Treasury Bills & Securities, the third largest segment, showed an increase of $1.6 billion in March (after an increase of $7.8 billion in Feb. and a decrease of $43.8 billion in Jan.) to $462.1 billion (19.6%).
Commercial Paper, which decreased by $4.6 billion, or 0.5%, remained the fourth largest segment just ahead of U.S. Government Agency Securities. CP holdings totaled $360.4 billion (15.3% of assets) while Agencies fell by $7.8 billion to $331.7 billion (14.0%). Notes (including Corporate and Bank) fell by $6.2 billion to $89.5 billion (3.8% of assets), and Other holdings fell by $2.7 billion to $76.0 billion (3.2%).
The Number of Accounts Outstanding in ICI's Holdings series for taxable money funds increased by 96.3 thousand to 23.842 million, while the Number of Funds decreased by one to 380. Over the past 12 months, the number of accounts fell by 712.5 thousand and the number of funds declined by 17. The Average Maturity of Portfolios declined to 46 days in March. Over the past 12 months, WAMs of Taxable money funds remain declined by three days.
Note: Crane Data updated its April MFI XLS to reflect the 3/31/14 composition data and maturity breakouts for our entire fund universe on April 24. Note again too that we are now producing a "Holdings Reports Issuer Module," which allows subscribers to choose a series of Portfolio Holdings and Issuers and to see a full listing of which money funds own this paper. (Visit our Content Center and the latest Money Fund Portfolio Holdings download page to access the latest version of this new file.)
