Money Fund Assets Drop
Money fund assets broke a 3-week streak of increases in the latest week. ICI's "Money Market Fund Assets" report says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $10.22 billion to $2.57 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, July 16, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) decreased by $670 million [to $905.5 billion, or 35.3% of all assets] and prime funds decreased by $8.87 billion [to $1.402 trillion, or 54.6% of assets]. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $680 million. Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $1.42 billion to $893.46 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $250 million to $197.65 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $750 million to $509.68 billion [19.9% of the total], and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $420 million to $186.13 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $8.80 billion to $1.67 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $420 million to $707.85 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $8.12 billion to $892.01 billion [34.8% of assets], and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $260 million to $72.00 billion." `Year-to-date, money fund assets have declined by $153 billion, or 5.6%. In other news, The New York Times wrote yesterday, "Some Top Money Managers Push for Fed to Start Raising Interest Rates". The article explains, "The Fed is out of step with Wall Street, say some of the country's wealthiest investors. If there was one thing that hedge fund managers kept coming back to time and time again at the CNBC Delivering Alpha conference on Wednesday, it was that the Federal Reserve should start thinking about raising rates. That was the message from the financier Stanley F. Druckenmiller, who said the time had passed for the Fed to keep interest rates near record low levels to revive the economy.... [H]e said the Fed should begin raising rates, even if it meant a bear market in stocks in the short-term to avoid the kind of excesses that led to the financial crisis from recurring."
