Crane Data's latest Money Fund Market Share rankings show slight asset increases for the majority of U.S. money fund complexes in July as money market fund assets grew $11.4 billion, or 0.4%. Overall assets have been relatively flat of late, falling by $12.1 billion, or 0.5%, over the past 3 months, but over the past 12 months through July 31, they are up $42.9 billion, or 1.7%. The biggest gainer in July was JP Morgan, whose MMFs rose by $9.3 billion, or 4.1%. Fidelity, Vanguard, Wells Fargo, Invesco, and Northern also saw assets increase, rising by $5.7 billion, $4.3 billion, $3.9 billion, $3.5 billion, and $3.4 billion, respectively. (Our domestic U.S. "Family" rankings are available in our MFI XLS product, our global rankings are available in our MFI International product, and the combined "Family & Global Rankings" are available to Money Fund Wisdom subscribers.) We review these below, and we also look at money fund yields the past month, which declined slightly.
Fidelity, Vanguard, PNC, Wells Fargo, and JP Morgan had the largest money fund asset increases over the past 3 months, rising by $9.1 billion, $6.5B, $5.3B, $3.6B, and $2.7B, respectively. Over the past year through July 31, 2016, Fidelity was the largest gainer (up $43.4B, or 10.6%), followed by BlackRock (up $35.7B, or 17.0%), Goldman Sachs (up $29.4B, or 18.8%), Vanguard (up $16.1B, or 9.2%), SSGA (up $15.5B, or 20.1%), and Northern (up $11.5B, or 14.5%). BlackRock was buoyed by its acquisition of BofA's money funds -- a deal which closed in April.
Other asset gainers for the past year include: PNC (up $7.6B, 174.0%), Schwab (up $3.8B, or 2.4%), Invesco ($2.6B, 4.7%), Wells Fargo (up $1.8B, or 1.6%), UBS (up $1.7B, 4.5%), and American Funds (up $562M, 3.7%). The biggest decliners over 12 months include: JP Morgan (down $23.4B, or -9.1%), Dreyfus (down $19.2B, or -11.2%), Deutsche (down $7.6B, or -25.3%), RBC (down $4.1B, or -28.6%), and Franklin (down $2.2B, or -8.9%).
Our latest domestic U.S. Money Fund Family Rankings show that Fidelity Investments remains the largest money fund manager with $453.7 billion, or 17.3% of all assets (up $5.7 billion in July, up $9.1 billion over 3 mos., and up $43.4B over 12 months). BlackRock is second with $245.2 billion, or 9.3% of assets (up $910M, down $11.6B, and up $35.7B for the past 1-month, 3-mos. and 12-mos., respectively). JPMorgan is third with $233.8 billion, or 8.9% market share (up $9.3B, up $2.7B, and down $23.4B for the past 1-month, 3-mos. and 12-mos., respectively). Federated Investors remained fourth with $204.3 billion, or 7.8% of assets (down $4.1B, down $2.0B, and down $2.0B).
Vanguard was in 5th place with $190.1 billion, or 7.2% of assets (up $4.3B, up $6.5B, and up $16.1B). Goldman Sachs held onto sixth place with $185.3 billion, or 7.1%, (down $4.6B, down $9.2B, and up $29.4B). Schwab ($159.7B, 6.1%) was in seventh place, followed by Dreyfus in eighth place with $151.7B (5.8%), Morgan Stanley was in ninth place with $125.3B (4.8%), and Wells Fargo was in tenth place with $111.7B (4.3%).
The eleventh through twentieth largest U.S. money fund managers (in order) include: SSGA ($92.7B, or 3.5%), Northern ($91.2B, or 3.5%), Invesco ($57.9B, or 2.2%), Western Asset ($42.8B, or 1.6%), First American ($39.7B, or 1.5%), UBS ($38.5B, or 1.5%), Deutsche <b:>`_ ($22.5B, or 0.9%), Franklin ($22.3B, or 0.9%), American Funds ($15.7B, or 0.6%), and T. Rowe Price ($14.9B, or 0.6%). The 11th through 20th ranked managers are the same as last month, except: T. Rowe Price displaced HSBC from the top 20. Crane Data currently tracks 64 U.S. MMF managers, the same number as last month.
When European and "offshore" money fund assets -- those domiciled in places like Dublin, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands -- are included, the top 10 managers match the U.S. list, except for Goldman Sachs moving up to #4 ahead of Federated and Vanguard and Western Asset bumping Wells Fargo from the top 10.
Looking at the largest Global Money Fund Manager Rankings, the combined market share assets of our MFI XLS (domestic U.S.) and our MFI International ("offshore"), the largest money market fund families are: Fidelity ($461.8 billion), BlackRock ($362.0B), JPMorgan ($359.3B), Goldman Sachs ($273.4B), and Federated ($212.8B). Vanguard ($190.1B) was sixth, followed by Dreyfus/BNY Mellon ($177.6B), Schwab ($159.7B), Morgan Stanley ($148.6B), and Western ($117.0B), which round out the top 10. These totals include "offshore" US Dollar money funds, as well as Euro and Pound Sterling (GBP) funds converted into US dollar totals.
Finally, our August Money Fund Intelligence and MFI XLS show that yields inched lower in July across most of our Crane Money Fund Indexes. The Crane Money Fund Average, which includes all taxable funds covered by Crane Data (currently 751), was down 1 basis point to 0.12% for the 7-Day Yield (annualized, net) Average, while the 30-Day Yield was flat at 0.12%. The MFA's Gross 7-Day Yield was 0.44% (flat), while the Gross 30-Day Yield was 0.45% (up 1 bps).
Our Crane 100 Money Fund Index shows an average 7-Day (Net) Yield of 0.23 (down 1 basis points) and an average 30-Day Yield of 0.23% (flat). The Crane 100 shows a Gross 7-Day Yield of 0.48% (flat), and a Gross 30-Day Yield of 0.48% (up 1 bp). For the 12 month return through 7/31/16, our Crane MF Average returned 0.08% (up 1 bp) and our Crane 100 returned 0.15% (up 2 bps). The total number of funds, including taxable and tax-exempt, fell to 1,040, down 14 from last month. There are currently 755 taxable and 285 tax-exempt money funds.
Our Prime Institutional MF Index (7-day) yielded 0.24% (down 3 bps) as of July 31, while the Crane Govt Inst Index was 0.15% (down 1 bps) and the Treasury Inst Index was 0.12% (flat). Thus, the spread between Prime funds and Treasury funds is 12 basis points, down from 15 bps last month. The Crane Prime Retail Index yielded 0.09% (unchanged), while the Govt Retail Index yielded 0.03% (unchanged) and the Treasury Retail Index was 0.02% (unchanged). The Crane Tax Exempt MF Index yielded 0.07% (up 1 bp).
The Gross 7-Day Yields for these indexes in July were: Prime Inst 0.54% (down 3 bps), Govt Inst 0.41% (unchanged), Treasury Inst 0.37% (unchanged), Prime Retail 0.53% (up 1 bps), Govt Retail 0.40% (up 3 bp), and Treasury Retail 0.34% (up 2 bp). Also, the Crane Tax Exempt Index jumped 2 basis points to 0.40%. The Crane 100 MF Index returned on average 0.02% for 1-month, 0.06% for 3-month, 0.12% for YTD, 0.15% for 1-year, 0.07% for 3-years (annualized), 0.06% for 5-years, and 1.01% for 10-years. (Contact us if you'd like to see our latest MFI XLS, Crane Indexes or Market Share report.)
In other news, see also Bloomberg's "There's a Big Dollar Crunch Brewing in Markets". The article says, "The dollar London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, has risen to the highest level in seven years while the cost of converting Japanese yen into greenbacks has surged ahead of U.S. money market reform that will come into effect this October. Those reform efforts will see prime money market funds -- an important source of short-term funding for banks -- build up so-called liquidity buffers and install redemption gates among other measures. While the changes are aimed at making the funds safer, they are causing turmoil in money markets as big banks adjust to the new reality of a shrinking pool of financing combined with the need to maintain their own large war chests of liquid assets."
