Money market fund assets rose for the fifth straight week, hovering right around the $2.70 trillion level, according to ICI's latest "Money Market Mutual Fund Assets" report. Government money funds (which ICI labels "Treasury") remained north of the $1 trillion level, which they first breached in August; they show no signs to date of outflows related to worries over the debt ceiling debate and the remote possibility of a technical default on Treasury bills. The release says, "Total money market fund assets increased by $770 million to $2.70 trillion for the week ended Wednesday, October 21, the Investment Company Institute reported today. Among taxable money market funds, Treasury funds (including agency and repo) increased by $920 million and prime funds increased by $1.36 billion. Tax-exempt money market funds decreased by $1.51 billion. Assets of retail money market funds decreased by $3.01 billion to $895.33 billion. Among retail funds, Treasury money market fund assets increased by $1.63 billion to $207.92 billion, prime money market fund assets decreased by $3.94 billion to $508.01 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $700 million to $179.40 billion. Assets of institutional money market funds increased by $3.78 billion to $1.80 trillion. Among institutional funds, Treasury money market fund assets decreased by $710 million to $793.46 billion, prime money market fund assets increased by $5.30 billion to $943.19 billion, and tax-exempt fund assets decreased by $810 million to $66.63 billion." Year-to-date, money fund assets are down $34 billion, or 1.2%. Month-to-date, money fund assets are up $30 billion. In other news, T. Rowe Price released its Q3 earnings report. On fees it says, "Money market advisory fees and other fund expenses voluntarily waived by the firm to maintain positive yields for investors in the third quarter of 2015 were $11.6 million, compared with $14.6 million in the 2014 quarter. For the first nine months of 2015, the firm has waived $37.8 million in such fees compared with $43.9 million in the 2014 period. The firm expects that it will continue to waive such fees for the remainder of the year and into 2016." It adds, "For the three-month period ended September 30, 2015, the mutual funds' net cash flows after client transfers include net outflows of $3.7 billion from the fixed income funds that were offset in part by net inflows of $0.4 billion into the stock and blended asset funds and $0.2 billion into the money market funds." Finally, for more on shrinking fee waivers, see Federated Investors latest earnings, which were released last night. (The earnings call is Friday a.m. at 9am.) Watch for coverage in our "News" Monday.
