MMF Assets Inch Higher
Total money market fund assets increased by $5.08 billion to $2.56 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, June 25, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) increased by $7.04 billion and prime funds decreased by $20 million. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.94 billion. Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $5.30 billion to $892.55 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $1.76 billion to $197.18 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $2.25 billion to $510.46 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.30 billion to $184.91 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $10.38 billion to $1.66 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $8.80 billion to $707.95 billion, prime money market fund assets increased by $2.23 billion to $885.27 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $640 million to $70.51 billion." Year-to-date, money fund assets have declined by $162 billion, or 6.0%. Institutional assets have declined YTD by $126 billion, or 7.0%, while Retail assets have declined by $37 billion, or 3.9%. Assets should decline sharply next week with quarter-end. In other news, see the South China Morning Post's "Launch of new products to grow mainland China online finance market". It says, "E-commerce giant Alibaba, which is preparing for its initial public offering in New York, was the first to launch an innovative online wealth management product for mainland consumers last June. The highly successful Yu E Bao money market fund had raised about 554 billion yuan (HK$696 billion) and signed up about 81 million investors by the end of April. With Yu E Bao, Alibaba lowered the minimum fund investment to one yuan from the previous average of about 1,000 yuan. This allowed the participation of younger and more middle-class investors, which the other online money market funds that followed have also targeted."
