MMF Assets Drop in Week
Money market fund assets were down last week after 3 weeks of gains, according ICI's latest weekly "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" report. The release says, "Total money market fund assets decreased by $7.70 billion to $2.61 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, June 10, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) decreased by $3.30 billion and prime funds decreased by $2.21 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $2.20 billion. Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $1.59 billion to $863.39 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $840 million to $191.39 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.14 billion to $492.88 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $1.29 billion to $179.12 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds decreased by $6.11 billion to $1.75 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $4.14 billion to $767.34 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $1.07 billion to $912.60 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $910 million to $66.62 billion." Money fund assets increased by $26.8 in May, after 4 straight months of declines, according to our June Money Fund Intelligence. Year-to-date through June 10, money market fund assets are down $123 billion or 4.5% (according to ICI's weekly series). In 2014, year-to-date through June 11, money fund assets were down by a larger margin, $136 billion, or 5.0%, so declines have been slightly milder so far in 2015. We expect money fund assets to recoup their deficit in the second half of 2015, since the past 3 years straight asset gains in the second half have outweighed first half asset outflows. June 15 and 30, though, are normally seasonally weak, so we expect to see more outflows in the coming weeks first.
