The U.S. Treasury's Financial Stability Oversight Council issued a "Notice Seeking Comment on Asset Management Products and Activities," which says, "Consistent with its responsibility to identify risks to the financial stability of the United States, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (Council) is issuing this notice seeking public comment on aspects of the asset management industry (Notice), in particular whether asset management products and activities may pose potential risks to the U.S. financial system in the areas of liquidity and redemptions, leverage, operational functions, and resolution, or in other areas. The Council is inviting public comment as part of its ongoing evaluation of industry-wide products and activities associated with the asset management industry. The notice has been submitted to the Federal Register for publication. Once published, the public will have 60 days to submit comments. All comments provided to the Council will be available on www.regulations.gov. Interested persons may submit comments electronically through the `Federal eRulemaking Portal at www.regulations.gov <b:>`_." (See ICI's Paul Stevens' statement here.) Also, after 8 straight weeks of asset increases, money fund asset decreased last week. ICI released its latest weekly "Money Market Fund Assets" report, which says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $13.41 billion to $2.69 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, December 17, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) increased by $4.05 billion and prime funds decreased by $21.01 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds increased by $3.55 billion. Assets of retail money market funds increased by $7.82 billion to $905.48 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $2.21 billion to $198.69 billion, prime money market fund assets increased by $3.16 billion to $518.35 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $2.45 billion to $188.45 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $21.23 billion to $1.79 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $1.84 billion to $792.16 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $24.17 billion to $923.82 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets increased by $1.10 billion to $71.47 billion."
