The May issue of Crane Data's Money Fund Intelligence was sent out to subscribers Thursday morning. The latest edition of our flagship monthly newsletter features the articles: "Crane Data Celebrates 9 Yrs., Enters Bond Fund Info Market," which marks our 9th anniversary with a look back at the past year, including the launch of our new endeavor, Bond Fund Intelligence; "Schwab & Latest Fund Co. Changes; SEC Answers FAQs," which examines Schwab's recent update on their money market funds, recaps all of the fund company announcements since the beginning of the year, and looks at the SEC's response to reform FAQs; and "ICI Fact Book Shows Flat Is New Up for Money Funds," which reports on the fund flows and other trends from the ICI's 2015 Investment Company Fact Book. We have also updated our Money Fund Wisdom database query system with April 30, 2015, performance statistics, and sent out our MFI XLS spreadsheet earlier this a.m. (MFI, MFI XLS and our Crane Index products are all available to subscribers via our Content center.) Our May Money Fund Portfolio Holdings are scheduled to go out on Monday, May 11, and our May Bond Fund Intelligence is scheduled to ship Thursday, May 14. Also, we mention the news of IMMFA's new Chair below.
The lead article in MFI on Crane Data's 9th anniversary says, "Crane Data, publisher of Money Fund Intelligence, celebrates its 9th birthday this month. As we've done in past May issues, we'd like to take a moment to review our progress and update you on our efforts, which include extending our coverage beyond money market funds. Crane Data was launched in May 2006 by money fund expert Peter Crane and technology guru Shaun Cutts to bring faster, cheaper and cleaner information to the money fund space. We began with our MFI newsletter and have grown to offer a full range of daily and monthly spreadsheets, news, database query systems and reports on U.S. and "offshore" money funds and other cash investments."
It continues, "Our big new addition over the past year is Bond Fund Intelligence, a monthly newsletter that tracks the bond fund universe, with a focus on the ultra-short and short-term bond fund sector. BFI includes news, features, and performance data on over 300 (and growing) of the largest bond funds and ETFs. We also publish a fund "profile" interview each month with a bond fund portfolio manager. As with MFI, Crane Data also offers an Excel complement with even more performance, data and rankings, Bond Fund Intelligence XLS. BFI includes our new Crane Bond Fund Intelligence Indexes, which now provide benchmarks for various bond market segments, including a new Conservative Ultra-Short BFI Index, a more focused benchmark for the more conservative funds in the space just beyond money market funds."
In our middle column, we look at how Schwab and others are adapting to SEC reforms, as well as the SEC's FAQs. It reads, "Charles Schwab Investment Management became the latest money market fund complex to issue an update on how it plans to adapt to the SEC reforms. Since the beginning of the year, 10 of the 20 largest money market fund managers have announced changes or updates to their MMF lineups. In this article, we not only review Schwab's plans, but we also recap the changes that have happened so far in 2015. Also, the SEC came out with answers to Frequently Asked Questions about MF Reforms, though these mainly dealt with very technical and minor issues. We also briefly review these."
It explains, "We have reported on all of the announcements that have come to our attention over the past several months. Of the 20 largest money fund complexes, half have issued updates, including the four largest -- Fidelity, JP Morgan, BlackRock, and Federated. Here is a look at the changes (and dates) announced so far." (We also list the 15 largest managers with their assets by type in the article.)
The third article says, "ICI's new "2015 Investment Company Fact Book" revealed some interesting trend data on money market fund flows in 2014. For instance, despite landmark SEC reforms, money funds saw overall inflows in 2014. What's more, institutional MMFs, which were hit hardest by reforms, saw significant inflows, while retail funds saw outflows. In addition, corporate investment in money fund assets was stable last year."
Crane Data's May MFI XLS, with April 30, 2015, data shows total assets plunging in April, the fourth monthly drop in a row, down $89.3 billion to $2.487 trillion, after falling $20.9 billion in March, $1.6 billion in February, and $44.6 billion in January. Our broad Crane Money Fund Average 7-Day Yield and 30-Day Yield remained at 0.02%, while our Crane 100 Money Fund Index (the 100 largest taxable funds) stayed at 0.03% (7-day and 30-day). On a Gross Yield Basis (before expenses were taken out), funds averaged 0.15% (Crane MFA, up from 0.14 last month) and 0.18% (Crane 100, same as last month) on an annualized basis for both the 7-day and 30-day yield averages. Charged Expenses averaged 0.13% (unchanged) and 0.15% (unchanged) for the two main taxable averages. The average WAMs for the Crane MFA and the Crane 100 were 39 and 41 days, respectively, both down 2 days from last month. (See our Crane Index or craneindexes.xlsx history file for more on our averages.)
In other news, the U.K.-based Institutional Money Market Fund Association confirmed Reyer Kooy as the new Chair of IMMFA. The statement reads, "Reyer is head of Institutional Liquidity Management, EMEA and Asia business, for Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management (DeAWM) and has been with Deutsche for nearly 5 years. Prior to joining DeAWM, Reyer was head of EMEA for a similar business at Credit Suisse, and also worked at JP Morgan for 12 years. Reyer has represented DeAWM on the Board of IMMFA since June of 2012 and also acted as its Treasurer.
Outgoing Chair Jonathan Curry of HSBC Global Asset Management was thanked for his 3 years' service as Chair of IMMFA, which followed an earlier 3 year spell as Chair of IMMFA's Investment Committee. Curry comments, "The past 3 years have been challenging for money market funds. I believe IMMFA has been instrumental in ensuring that the views of the investors and industry have been heard. There is still work to do, but we look forward to continuing the Association's work in this key area, supporting our Members."
